Beyond the Definition: A Christmas Story
by Masaka1
Summary: To the yamis Christmas is nothing more than a pointless festival. Despite the information they've been presented they can't be convinced. So its up to their hikairs to show the true meaning of the holiday to the darks. YYxY SxJ BxR
1. What are Jinglebells

**Masaka:** Okay, okay I see some of you sweating out there! Don't worry people, this little Christmas story doesn't mean I have given up on Heavenly Interventions

**Yami Masaka: **It simply means she's ignoring her ART final to do a little more writing

**Masaka: **HEY! **Yami Masaka just shrugs unrepentantly and goes back to starting at the Christmas tree in both confusion and awe**

**Jason:** Okay ya'll should now I'm the amazing transforming muse dog disclaimer! And I'm here to tell ya'll that neither Masaka nor that shriveled old hag she calls a yami **gets whacked by Yami Masaka's shoe** has any legal claim to Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the other name-brands mentioned in this story. Fact is, our mentioning it is a good thing! We give freaking free advertisement to those corporate hell's angels so we should be getting a BONUS not a call to court! That's it ya'll!

**All:** AND LET THE STORY BEGIN!

**CHAPTERSTARTCHAPTERSTARTCHAPTERSTARTCHAPTERSTARTCHAPTERSTARTCHAPTERSTART**

Bakura and Atem had dealt with some pretty strange things since coming back from the world of the dead –thanks in no small part to Malik's innate desire to tick off the gods leading to his discovery of and enacting of a very old spell that had been trapped down in the Ishtar catacombs for centuries.

They'd dealt with the oddities of the microwaves, the cell-phone, the television and the alarm-clock. They'd been schooled by their aibous to understand modern-day mentalities including 'unjustifiable self-defense' –that particular lesson had made both dark-spirits terribly depressed.

But nothing they had learned so far prepared them for…'Cris-mass'.

"For the last time, mou hitori no boku, it's pronounced CHRIST-MASS! As in Christ's Mass," Yugi sighed as he readjusted a stack of boxes in his arms.

"Christ…wasn't he part of that Christianity you tried to tell me about, aibou?" Atem blinked, trying not to let the instinct to protect his other force him to take the boxes from Yugi's arms.

Yugi hated it when anyone, even his friends, did something to remind him of how petite he was.

"Well…yes, technically if you want to get down to it, Christ is part of Christianity and Christmas is a Christian thing…but it doesn't have to be…Gah!! Yami, we already went over this didn't we? I spent TWO WEEKS researching every historical thing about Christmas right down to why it's called Yuletide! Honestly, I thought you'd understand it by now."

"Well…I can understand why an ancient culture would create a festival to celebrate winter solstice and I understand why another religion would absorb these practices into its own as a method of converting followers…but I do not understand how all of these ancient religious babble boiled down to a silly ritual of buying gifts for people you may not even see more than one day a year and further wasting money on expensive electrical lights," Atem frowned regally crossing his arms over his chest.

It even further perplexed him that a stupid religious festival would force people to don such hideous garments as the reindeer strewn wool sweater he'd been blackmailed into this morning –Yugi must have KNOWN Atem couldn't stand his aibou looking so upset and embarrassed and disappointed, it was on PURPOSE-. The creature depicted on his current garment didn't even look like a reindeer; it looked like a geometrically designed horned DOG with a freakish red bulb for a nose.

"Yami…" Yugi sighed in disappointment. He didn't get any further than that before Jii-san called from the front of the store for more copies of the video-game Magic Journeys.

Throwing his other-half a mournful look Yugi quickly turned away and hustled back to the game shop portion of their home.

Atem watched his light-half leave from his normal place in the kitchen. Normally he would hang around in his and Yugi's room or in the living-room but since winter had started the ancient spirit found the kitchen more to his liking.

As long as he justified it by sliding in a tray of those instant-cut cookies that Jii-san bought, Atem had an unlimited source of heat courtesy of the oven. It was even luckier that the oven was gas-run so Atem didn't have to bother with buttons AND enjoy very long bouts of heat as the oven took forever to cool down.

"It's all just nonsense," Atem grumbled to himself.

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All the way across town another ancient spirit was thinking the exact same thing.

"I DON'T SEE WHAT THE HELL THIS CHRISTMAS THING HAS TO DO WITH OUR BEDDING ARRANGEMENT!!!" the ex-thief screamed.

Ryou had been trying –in the most delicate fashion- to persuade his other-half to move into one of the house's guest-rooms in light of Ryou's father coming home for the holiday but the spirit wasn't having it.

"Yami-" Ryou sighed warily.

"Don't 'yami' me! You and I both know your father is a jackass bigot and I don't see why we have to change OUR lifestyles for even ONE SECOND to accommodate him!!!" Bakura snarled.

Ryou's shoulders drooped slightly. He knew that his lover and dark-half had a very good point but…Well it was important to him that his father be comfortable for the holidays. Because if he was comfortable he wouldn't find any excuse to work through the Yuletide…like last year…and the year before that…and the year before that…and the one before that.

If Ryou could just SOMEHOW manage to convince Bakura to cut down on his seemingly constant need for PDA…and calm down his swearing…and maybe do something about Bakura's bluntness…then maybe there was a chance this Christmas would work out.

"DAMN IT, I'M NOT EVEN A DAMN CHRISTIAN, WHY THE HELL DO I GOTTA PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT!!!"

Unlike Atem, Bakura hadn't needed an elaborate explanation of the holidays. While there definitely WERE things the spirit didn't get, he was still pretty well versed in culture. The Millennium Ring had managed to go to very many countries and pull in very many hosts. In fact Bakura had teased Ryou that he probably had seen the evening star hanging over Bethlehem itself when the pale-haired boy had first brought up the holiday.

"I know you're not Christian Bakura…and I know that you hate my father…but please can't you respect that Christmas is IMPORTANT to me and that my father is IMPORTANT to me?" Ryou frowned gently, trying to blink fast enough that the tears in his eyes would go back in.

He hated being so girly all the time.

Bakura looked over his hikari critically and noticed the terribly hidden battle of tears and let out an almighty groan of annoyance.

"Will you STOP with the TEARS? Damn it! You know I can't stand to see you cry because of me! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" Bakura winced, his temper souring even further.

"I'm not crying," Ryou said, continuing to blink in vain.

"Well you want to," Bakura almost pouted. He let out another annoyed groan and pulled Ryou into his arms. "I'm not moving into the damn guestroom."

"I-"

"BUT –and I want you to listen to this part- I WILL try my best to NOT scare your father away…so you can enjoy this stupid capitalized carnage celebration of yours."

A brilliant smile broke over the hikari's face and he threw his arms joyously around Bakura's neck.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!"

"Yah, yah, yah. Just know that the minute the 26th rolls around and your dad hightails it out of here, your ass is mine. And I expect interest on our little sexual escapades given the fact that you are forcing me into celibacy for that damn next week!"

"That sounds fair," Ryou blushed prettily.

Bakura smirked darkly and planted a tongue-heavy kiss on his other to seal the deal and let the boy go.

Ryou smiled again then darted off to finish the Christmas decorating he'd been trying to finish up all weekend.

Bakura watched him go and then smacked his head hard against the nearest wall. One week with his beautiful angel's hellish dad sneering at them for every little move they made around each other. Being forced to carry around Zorc's nasty mind hadn't been as daunting as this!

"It's all just nonsense, damn annoying nonsense!"

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The All Millennium Mid-Week Coffee Meeting had been a tradition that Yugi-tachi had set up even before the yamis had returned to the living world. Before they'd come back it had just been The Former Lights And Friends Mid-Week Coffee Meeting, and it had been much more depressing because Yugi and Ryou both spent the majority of the time wailing away at how much they missed their other-halves.

The meeting always took place at this little American styled café in the center of town. Usually it was filled with the soldiers from the nearby American Air-Force Base but not always. The café was very cozy, with a color scheme seemingly made up of all different shades of brown, spare the giant blackboard behind the counter where the menu was dedicatedly etched out every other week.

To both dark spirits' horror this blackboard had been decorated with the seasonal images of snowmen and Santa, holly and even what looked like a cockeyed version of a Menorah. Not only that but there was mistletoe hanging in the doorway –okay, Bakura hadn't been TOO upset by that, but Atem turned a violent shade of pink- and fake frost and more holly stenciled onto the windows and red-ribbons were looped artistically over the bar and the photos had all been wrapped up like presents.

"My Ra, everyone seems to get sucked into this mayhem don't they," Atem gapped in shock.

"Considering how many Americans traipses through here it ain't that surprisin'," Jou snorted, tugging self-consciously on his not very Japanese blonde hair.

"Well I think it's lovely," Anzu sighed clutching her hands together over her heart.

"You would," Honda blanched.

"She's right guys. It's really nice! I mean, it's the fact that everyone makes an effort to show Christmas spirit that adds so much to the magic of this time of year," Yugi smiled brilliantly. "If only individual people decorated their homes it would feel like something was missing. This way it's like the whole world is acting in sync, trying its best to act a little kinder for the holiday."

"It's all just a gimmick to trick witless shoppers into thinking that businesses really give a damn about you fools," Seto's voice interrupted, along with a chilling draft of cold from outside.

"KAIBA! Who the hell invited you?" Jou blustered, his face suddenly turning a violent puce.

"If you must know, Yugi invited me. He's invited me every single week since you idiots started this stupid tradition," Seto said as he unwound his powder blue scarf from his neck.

"Y-YUG'!" Jounouchi whirled around to the silent duelist in shock.

"W-well he IS part of our group, he's survived all the crazy stuff we have and he deserves an equal chance to rant about it all," Yugi smiled weakly at his pal.

Jounouchi floundered about for words for a few seconds more then buried his still cranberry-colored face in his arms.

"It's wonderful to see you, Kaiba-san," Ryou smiled politely at the CEO.

Atem and Bakura just glared icily at the billionaire as they usually did and gave slight inclinations of the head.

Honda and Anzu tried to be more polite and gave actual vocal greetings, both of which Seto ignored.

"Would any of you be interested in some holiday work at KaibaCorp," Seto asked blandly as he ordered a cup of hazelnut decaf.

"What did you have in mind, Kaiba?" Anzu asked politely.

"I have a Santa hired for the building but I'll be damned if I can find a single person willing to play as an elf. All you'd need to do would be pass out candy-canes and keep the kids in line."

"How much are you thinking of payin'?" Jou asked, peeking up from his folded arms.

"For you, mutt? All the dog-food you can eat," Seto smiled tauntingly.

"WHY YOU-" Jounouchi screamed, moving to get up and pummel the brunette. Luckily Bakura and Honda were close enough to stop him-not the Bakura really wanted to but he knew that Ryou would insist on it-.

"I could actually use a little more money," Ryou smiled.

Bakura looked at his lover in shock. "Ry! Why would you-"

"That goes double for me, I have some holiday expense that I need work to cover," Yugi spoke up.

"Aibou!" Atem gapped.

"Wonderful," Kaiba said, scribbling something down on a notepad he pulled from his seasonally-appropriate trench-coat. "You report to the address here tomorrow around ten-o-clock and you'll be set up. I'll be working down in Advertising during this week if something should go wrong, that's the fourth floor."

Putting the piece of paper down on the table Seto paid for his drink and departed. Apparently he was only there to look for help. Ah, well at least he'd shown up at all.

"Aibou, why are you doing this for Kaiba of all people? You know he wouldn't hesitate at turning this situation into a chance to humiliate you!" Atem gapped at his other-half.

"Well…I guess I'll just have to trust Kaiba that he won't take advantage, won't I? Besides, if I want to have the Christmas I want, I need to get a little extra money," Yugi said picking up the card and looking it over before passing it onto Ryou.

"We aren't in any danger anyway. I mean, of all the places we COULD work, KaibaCorp makes the most sense. Anywhere else and Yugi and I would have to worry about old Battle City fanatics," Ryou said in a preemptive strike against his other-half's protests.

"But what if someone harasses you? The holidays seem to bring out wackos and-" Bakura started.

"Oh please, like anyone would hit on Santa's Elf. The standard elf suit is a chemical-free form of birth-control!" Ryou laughed.

"But-" both spirit's whined.

"No, yami," both hikaris rebuffed.

A dangerous silence descended over the table which Anzu bravely moved to break by bringing up the Secret Santa arrangement their group had come from.

"S-so everyone have an idea on what to give their pick?"

"I got MY person the PERFECT gift! Man, it is so awesome I've even impressed myself," Honda bragged happily.

"I gotta find another job or get a cheaper gift," Jou moaned.

"No idea what to get my person," Atem shrugged.

"Same," Bakura said plainly.

"Well I think I've done pretty good with my pick," Anzu smiled almost saintly. She then turned to the abnormally silent lights. "What about you guys?"

"O-oh well t-the Secret Santa I got I just…yah, I got my person's gift," Ryou stammered.

"Uh…I think I may have something planned for my person," Yugi smiled thoughtfully with a slight blush.

Bakura and Yami shared a suspicious look and then looked at their respective lights.

"We're all chipping in for Malik's present right?" Jou asked, unaware of the strife going on.

"Yes, and it's being shipped to Egypt this Friday, so everybody better get their money into me sooner rather than later. I'm sticking in a few things for Rishaid and Ishizu too…just because it feels cruel to leave them out," Anzu reported.

"Hmmph, I still don't like the fact we're buying a present for that homicidal freak," Honda frowned.

"That homicidal freak is the reason Atem and Bakura are with us," Anzu frowned.

"And you are grateful for that little turn-about, aren't you dear Hirito?" Bakura cooed sarcastically.

Honda only growled and took a gulp of his peppermint mochacinno.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a rush, with the conversation going from everything to why Mahaado had gotten so lucky as to be stuck with a busty blonde with his eternal servant while Atem and Bakura got to sit around in the dark to why Pegasus should not be allowed to do holiday commercials.

Soon three-o-clock came around and the gang was forced to split up for various matters such as classes or jobs, leaving only the yamis and the hikaris.

"So what's the real reason you guys are taking this job," Atem plunged in.

"MOU HITORI NO BOKU! Sheesh! Can't you give this up for even a single second?" Yugi flushed painfully.

"We are just looking for a little extra cash for presents, okay? Is there anything unjustifiably sinister about that," Ryou pouted, leaning in closer to Yugi for emotional support.

"You are willing to dress up in ridiculous costumes for a guy you hate while dealing with all the other things you have to do before this damn Christmas day comes around. Excuse us for thinking it is a little suspicious," Bakura jumped in for the defense.

As shocking as it was, more to themselves than anyone else, Atem and Bakura made a pretty good team. They knew when and where to boost each other's strengths and could cover just about any angle of attack between their assorted skills.

Once they had set aside their difference with a resounding 'WE BOTH GOT SCREWED OVER, OUR ANCESTORS SUCKED AND HELL'S BELLS IF I'M GOING TO LET AN THOSE ANCIENT BASTARDS DEFINE MY NEW LIFE' the two dark ones actually became rather good friends.

Good friends who sometimes suspected each other of coming up with ruthless plans to destroy each other, but friends none the less.

"We. Are. Just. Doing. This. For. The. Money." Ryou persisted, "How many times must we say it before you understand!"

"Well then, answer us this, what presents are you buying that are so expensive? And why won't you let us help pay for them? Between Atem's ancient inheritance and my own recovered hordes we could buy you _Shibuya _twice over, including the clothes off the people who hang around there!" Bakura snapped.

"We can't tell you," Yugi said softly, "but please trust us that it's important and we really want to do this."

Atem and Bakura shared a long look then nodded in silent agreement and turned back to the little ones.

"All right then," the said as one, "then we're coming with you."

**CHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTEREND**

**Masaka: **This is my most stupid and stupendous feat ever! Trying to write a Christmas story this close to the holiday, it may not happen but I'm gonna try!

**Yami Masaka: ** So let's all pray for 'Saka's success!


	2. Who wears shortskirts? Elves!

**Masaka: **Ugh I got a new desk as an early Christmas present and the thing weighed a ton going up the stairs. Well anyway, obviously that's not what you all want to know about. So far I've received three reviews that are all various shades of positive. Hopefully that will continue but if it doesn't, oh well. Without any further ado here is the next chapter

**--C-H-A-P-T-E-R—S-T-A-R-T--**

Mokuba was an unusually reliable employee for someone his age. Any other thirteen-year-old would have found it hard to spend their Saturdays directing the sales staff on how to answer the millions of questions that concerned parents threw at the company. Most thirteen-year-olds would absolute implode at having to spend their winter vacation wrapping gifts and double-checking addresses with grumpy costumers who didn't see why their packages 'couldn't just be sent right NOW!'

But Mokuba Kaiba wasn't a regular thirteen-year-old…well…most of the time anyway.

Today, however, Mokuba was doing a pretty good job at acting his age. And it was all because he'd received the almost miraculous opportunity to see some of the most powerful people on this planet dressed up in emerald green leotards covered in ruby red pom-poms.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Y-y-you l-l-look s-so r-ri-ri-ridiculous," Mokuba howled, clutching his stomach in one hand and pointing to the two hapless youths with the other.

Atem was handling it pretty well actually, only turning a very painful looking maroon, while Bakura, on the other hand, was covered in a threatening aura of shadows.

"Kid, do you have a death wish? Because I swear if you keep it up with the laughing you will be playing the Ghost of Christmas Past for the rest of eternity!" the white-haired spirit growled.

"GUYS!" Yugi yelled, running out of the dressing room and running in-between Mokuba and the spirits. "This is why Ryou and I told you two that you didn't have to do this! Stop acting so hostile Bakura, and Atem, if you don't clam down your probably going to make yourself pass out."

"I will be fine, aibou," Atem tried to smile for his other, "but I cannot make any guarantees. But perhaps I can clam myself by thinking that at least I was lucky enough to get a costume that is gender-correct."

As the blush was obviously forced down from Atem's face, his aibou's face started to light up instead.

Somehow, because the Universe was just inclined to mess with the hikaris in whatever manner it could, the costume department hadn't been able to find any boy elf costumes small enough to fit on Yugi's frame.

So instead Yugi was dressed in one of the female elf costumes. Like the boy's the main part of the uniform was green, only with white trim like on the Santa costume instead of bundles of little red pom-poms. This lovely little dress came with a pair of red and white stripped stockings –thigh-high stockings luckily so Yugi could actually walk around freely without worrying about crushing the family jewels- and a matching Santa hat plus some curly-toed, bell-tipped elf shoes.

"Y-yah well…it's not Kaiba's fault that the uniforms are all too big for me," Yugi coughed awkwardly as he tugged at the hem of his skirt.

"Of course not," Atem and Bakura both snorted sarcastically.

Mokuba was having a hard time breathing by this point. He'd actually fallen into the fake snow that covered the Santa's castle in the store and was alternatively laughing and hacking out the small pieces that he accidentally breathed in.

"STOP IT ALREADY YOU STUPID BRAT!!" Bakura screamed down at the kid.

"C-can't h-help it! O-oh God! S-so hilarious!" Mokuba wheezed. Finally after what seemed like an eternity the younger Kaiba rolled himself to his knees and from there back to his feet. "Phew! Man, that was great! I haven't laughed so hard since the year I managed to put alcoholic eggnog in the employee Christmas bash without anybody realizing! Phew, it nearly killed me! Yugi, I'll see that you get a big bonus for dress in the girl's costume, I can't believe that we don't have uniforms small enough."

"Thank you, Mokuba. That would really be appreciated," Yugi smiled gently.

"Think nothing of it now you…heh…elves should probably report to Santa …snkk…the line will be opened up- heh-heh- in a few minutes so –pppphht- b-be ready," Mokuba said, obviously trying his best to hold in another peal of laughter.

"Alright we'll do that. Say hello to your brother for us," Yugi said, taking both Bakura and Atem's arms in his and leading them back further into the fake throne room.

Mokuba nodded to show that he'd heard and stumbled away back towards the elevator, looking slightly hilarious himself, absolutely plastered with flakes of fake snow.

"Ooooh that kid nearly had it! If this stupid place weren't about to be flooded with brats I would have murdered him and stuck his stinking corpse in one of these outfits and let him get laughed at!" Bakura snarled.

"I doubt anyone, other than you, would find a corpse hilarious, no matter how it was dressed, Bakura," Atem shrugged casually.

Bakura only growled again and wandered over to where his hikari was thoughtfully counting out lollipops to put even-numbers in everyone's basket.

Sighing in relief that it was over, Yugi turned to look at his other and noticed that Atem was staring at him with a very intense look on his face.

"Y-yami, what's wrong?" Yugi shivered.

"…You look cute in that, aibou," Atem smirked slightly. Yugi's face went up like a roman candle and he began to chock.

"Well-well, look at all my happy workers!" a very nauseating voice said.

Atem's smirk slide right off and his hands immediately rolled into fists. From behind the North Pole's set strolled the most aggravating person that the ex-pharaoh had ever had to suffer. Their temporary boss Murakami Su.

A former attendant of Domino High School, Su had an ego that was a completely mismatch to the man's actual worth. He was a lot like a tick, with a set of wide strangely flat lips and eyes completely bugged out behind a pair of coke-bottle glasses. His behavior was also rather tick-like, he would find someone he liked and he leeched onto them without restraint or care of the other person's feelings.

This would be the second time Atem was forced to deal with him. The first time had been an encounter at the Domino Zoo (A/N: I am not referring directly to Heavenly Interventions but I am having fun re-using this horrible character-type) where Atem had foolishly tried to get a job alongside Jounouchi.

At that time it had been the blonde that Su was leeched onto, causing said blonde no end of trouble and trauma. The way that Murakami had been siphoned off that time was by Mokuba's genius maneuvering, 'accidentally' knocking over a bucket of fish guts onto the dork and then 'unintentionally' tripping him into the dolphin tank. Well…that and he'd blackmailed his brother into acting like Jounouchi's 'significant-other' for the day.

It was no wonder that Jounouchi couldn't even look Kaiba straight in the face these days without turning scarlet.

"Good morning, Murakami-sempai," Yugi bowed politely, exposing the faintest hint of bare thighs to Atem, would was standing right behind him.

Murakami pushed his glasses up his black-head freckled nose and smirked superiorly. "Ah, hello there, Motu-san. You look very stunning in that particular uniform, I'm so glad that we were able to find something that fit you."

Suddenly Atem had the sneaking suspicion that this whole uniform mix-up really HADN'T been Kaiba's fault, but rather a hideous plot by Murakami.

"Well, um…thank you…I think," Yugi blinked

"Yes, I have no doubt that you'll be our most popular elf of all, Motu-san," Murakami smirked before turning around and going over to harass Ryou about how many lollipops went in each basket or something equally pointless.

Atem couldn't help the low growl that escaped from his lips. Yugi looked over at his in worry.

"Mou hitori no boku, don't lose it, okay? I know you really don't like Murakami-sempai, but it only for a few weeks, alright?" Yugi pleaded.

"Only for a few weeks," Atem repeated tensely. "Only a few weeks…but if he dares to treat you with the same low-brow manners he treated Jounouchi with."

"He won't," Yugi laughed easily, "it will be fine. Maybe Jou was unluck, but I sincerely doubt I'll attract that much attention from Murakami. I mean, as great a bastard as he is, he still has a great eye for attractive people."

"And you think you aren't attractive?" Atem asked with one quirked eyebrow.

"Wha-I mean…well..." Yugi blushed in embarrassment.

"SANTA COMING IN! OKAY PEOPLE, TO YOUR STATIONS!" Su yelled out, interrupting whatever response Yugi was going to give.

Atem glowered over at the ugly manager and tried to remind himself that this was all for the sake of keeping his hikari safe.

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Jounouchi looked down at the phone murderously as if trying to threaten it into dialing itself.

For the last several weeks Jounouchi had been trying to work himself up to calling Kaiba and inviting him out for a _strictly platonic_ thank-you dinner.

After the way Kaiba had saved him last year, Jounouchi had really wanted to bury the hatchet and try becoming closer friends with the CEO.

But Kaiba didn't make it easy. Nope, every time he crossed paths with the sapphire-eyed boy he'd completely loose his cool and start yelling over the most stupid things.

"C-come o-on J-Jou, y-you c-c-c-can do t-this. Y-you're j-just g-going t-to ask h-him o-out to d-dinner is all. I-it's n-not like y-you're a-asking h-him o-out on a-an actual d-date! Y-you're j-just g-going to g-give him a long-long overd-due t-thank you, is all," Jou told himself as he lowered his fingers towards to buttons.

"NII-SAMA!" Serenity suddenly called, causing Jou to jolt and hit several buttons at once.

"Damn it," Jounouchi whimpered, as his little sister came bounding into the room.

"Nii-sama! Nii-sama! Guess what! Guess what!" Serenity grinned brilliantly. Jou put the phone down and smiled indulgently up at his sister.

"What's up, Serenity? Ya gotta tell me cuz I'll never be able ta guess."

"Honda is taking me to Domino Tower for dinner Christmas Eve. DOMINO TOWER! Can you imagine! It's like the most romantic place in the entire city to eat and it really, really expensive, but Hirito said he'd been saving up fro it since June so he was absolutely covered! Oh Jou! It's okay if I go with him isn't it?"

"Uh well…yah I guess, but Christmas Eve is still a long way away, why are ya tellin' me now?" Jou blinked in confusion.

Usually he'd be upset about his best friend making moves on his little sister but well…the guy had saved up all his cash since June! That was something that Jounouchi could really respect, even if he didn't particularly like it.

"Well I was thinking that, since we already have a reservation, Honda and I, maybe it would be easier for you to take Kaiba there as well! We could call the restaurant and-"

"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! WHAT DO YA MEAN 'TAKE KAIBA OUT'! I HATE THAT JERK!!!" Jounouchi yelled, his face turning the terrible shade of cranberry that only mentions of Kaiba could bring him to.

"Oh please, nii-sama, you are so transparent. You have been mooning over Seto-kun ever since he saved you from your stupid boss six months ago! Really, I'm sure even he's realized it by now."

The suggestion, in itself, caused Jounouchi's heart to painfully skip a beat. Did Kaiba know? COULD he know? It wasn't that outrageous to presume. After all, the guy was a genius, and even if he wasn't surely it wouldn't be hard to notice that Jou had started getting redder every time they talked since that day when Kaiba had wrapped his arms around Jounouchi's waist and smirked right in Murakami's face calling him, 'my pup.'

Oh! Oh God no! No! Please no! He couldn't have figured it out, could he? Jounouchi couldn't ask Kaiba out to dinner if the billionaire already suspected that Jounouchi was more than just grateful, that he was infatuated.

"I-I-I d-don't think t-that's a-a good idea, sis," Jounouchi said painfully, "I-I mean, Hirito w-was savin' up for months, right? I-I didn't do that and s-so I won't be able to a-afford."

"Oh come on Jou, I know you've saved up a lot of money for your 'thank you' gift to Kaiba. I've seen your bank statements!" Serenity frowned.

"HEY! DON'T BE SNOOPIN' THROUGH MY BILLS!" Jounouchi snapped agitatedly.

Showing a new confidence that hadn't been there the year before, Serenity just rolled her eyes and headed for the door. "Okay, I'm sorry I guess. But if you should change your mind we still have two days in which we can switch our arrangements without any hassle."

The door closed behind the red-head leaving Jounouchi once again alone with his phone.

Taking a deep breath the blonde decided to go for it and he dialed.

**SCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGE**

Ryou was being to feel a little bit guilt about his plans as he watched Yugi being harassed about his outfit by what seemed to be the one-hundredth annoying teenager.

It had been Ryou's own need for money that had prompted Yugi to take this job. They'd both been looking for jobs together in secret before Kaiba had come into the coffee-shop with his offer.

Yugi had already gotten his other-half a wonderful present, something that he'd had for a long time, which had simply needed a few repairs before it could be represented to his yami.

In return for helping Ryou afford his own present, Ryou had helped design and craft one of the small modifications that Yugi had made to his gift.

But considering how much trouble the small teen was going through, Ryou was being to think he'd over-charged his poor friend.

"Yugi…are…are you doing okay?" Ryou asked the boy after their shift was over. Yugi was huddled on the bench in the locker-room his head between his knees.

"I'll…I'll be fine," Yugi panted slightly. He'd been on an adrenaline kick almost all day, dodging goons left and right. It only made sense that he was overexerted.

"You know Yugi…you don't have to help me with this. I mean, it may take a little extra work on my end but I'm sure I can afford Bakura's gift on my own."

"No, don't try to let me out of it, Ryou," Yugi said lifting his head up and looking Ryou straight in the eye. "This isn't even about you! I HAVE to help out with this!"

"Wha- what do you mean by that?" Ryou blinked.

"It's…it's about my yami…about …what I want for him…and what I have to do to get what I want…" Yugi sighed.

"But Yugi, you already got him that beautiful mu-"

"It's not about the gift," Yugi sighed warily. "I mean…if it was about the gift then I wouldn't spend every other morning arguing with Atem about the importance of Christmas… no…this is about something…a little more insubstantial…but even more valuable."

"…You really aren't making any sense, you know that," Ryou frowned in worry.

Yugi laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Ya, I guess I don't, do I? Just promise me that you'll have the gift ready and that you'll bring it and Bakura to the appointed place at the appointed time, okay?"

"Of course, Yugi," Ryou nodded with a smile. He then turned and shrugged on his coat. "Listen Yugi, I still feel a little bad enough if you say I shouldn't so how about I treat you-"

Ryou turned to look back at Yugi and he saw that his friend was no longer around.

"-to…a hot drink?"

**SCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGESCENECHANGE**

Anzu walked into the building absolutely terrified that she would not see her name on that list.

Last week she'd auditioned for a part in the local ballet troupe's yearly production of the Nutcracker. Specifically she'd gone out for the role of the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

This particular production held special meaning for her. It was the first performance she'd ever seen and it had been the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy in particular that had cemented Anzu's dream of becoming a ballerina entirely.

And now she might actually get a chance to perform the piece. The ballet troupe wasn't very well put together, in fact it was dangerously loose when it came to practicing the dance, but it was still the only troupe that Anzu had ever really wanted to perform in. Because it had been this troupe to give her the dream.

She managed to reach the double-doors before her courage failed her and she turned to leave.

"ANZU-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" Yugi called out, running up the street at mach-four speeds.

"Yugi what are you-" she didn't get any further in her question because suddenly Yugi's foot intercepted a patch of ice and the boy came whizzing at her, plowing them both into a snow-drift beside the auditorium's stairs.

When they both managed to shake away their dizziness they found themselves in an only slightly compromising position with Yugi straddled over Anzu's hips, his face buried in the snow just over Anzu's shoulder.

"Oh! Oh Anzu-chan! I'm sorry; I didn't see that ice there. Are you okay, I didn't hurt you did I?" Yugi asked anxiously, sitting up abruptly and checking his friend over for injuries.

The brunette simply laughed and sat up herself. She then began brushing the snow off of both of them.

"No, I'm alright Yugi. No need to worry. But next time you come running down the street, please try to remember it's December and sidewalks get slick in December."

"Yah, I'm sorry. I was just so excited, I know today is the day that the audition results come in and I wanted to make sure I was here to see them with you," Yugi blushed.

Not to long ago, it would have been impossible for either of the teenagers to be this close to each other without turning an embarrassed shade of rhubarb.

Surprisingly it had been Anzu who had stepped forward first, saying that she really liked Yugi and that she thought he was cute, but that she really didn't want to be in love with him because it would just end up being a weird relationship that would undoubtedly fall apart once she left for America.

Yugi had been so relieved that he wasn't the only one to feel peculiar about the other that he had easily accepted Anzu's half-confession half-apology and agreed to continue their friendship as it was.

"Oh Yugi, you didn't have so show up here. I know you're busy getting ready for Christmas and I you already helped me so much, always shopping with me for my supplies and keeping me informed on every ballet class available," Anzu sighed, getting gracefully to her feet and pulling Yugi up beside her.

"Don't talk like that Anzu. You know that if it's for my friends, it's all worth the trouble in the end," Yugi smiled prettily.

Anzu opened her mouth to say something, but seeing the determined look in Yugi's eyes and recognizing the argument as one she herself often used, she just sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

"So what are we standing around here for, anyway? Let's go inside and check the listing already," Yugi said, grabbing Anzu's wrist and tugging her towards the doors. Anzu dug her heels into the snow making Yugi come to a stop.

"W-what's wrong?" Yugi asked.

"Yugi…I'm scared. What if I didn't make it?" Anzu blinked.

"Well…then this group is obviously made up with morons and we'll have to find you a better group to perform with," Yugi answered with only a moment's hesitation.

Anzu blushed and let Yugi led her up to the doors. With her heart in her throat she walked up to the listing and searched for her name.

"Masaki Anzu….role is the second escort to the Sugar Plum Fairy," Anzu read off painfully.

"Oh, Anzu, I'm so sorry," Yugi frowned.

"No…no it's okay…it's fine…I mean, I'm not even a real full-time student of dance yet so…this is good…this is really good," Anzu smiled bravely.

"Anzu," Yugi sighed.

Suddenly the door to the auditorium slammed open; Anzu's quick reflexes were all the saved Yugi from getting a nasty concussion.

"-AND I REFUSE TO COME BACK UNLESS ALL MY DEMANDS ARE MET!!" a waspish woman screamed over her shoulder before charging away in a huff.

Moments later another person came running out of the room. It was the director of the play, Tatsuaki Shenso.

"Tatsuaki-sama," Anzu gasped, bowing suddenly, and forcing Yugi's head down with hers.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Yugi whimpered.

"IIWAKA-SAN YOU CAN'T JUST-…oh hello there Masaki-san, glad you came back. You were in such a rush after your audition I couldn't say a word to you," the ballet master smiled.

"I-I had a-a job to get to," Anzu winced in embarrassment. "Um…who was that rushing out just now?"

"Hmm? Oh that WAS our Claire, Miss Iiwaka Kanna," Tatsuaki sighed. He then looked Anzu critically up and down and smacked his hand into his fist.

Yugi and Anzu both shared a look of confusion at the look.

"Say Anzu, do you think you have time to come into the auditorium every afternoon until the performance."

"I-I suppose that I could juggle my schedule around…why?" Anzu asked.

"Well I'm thinking that with a little bit of private coaching there is no reason why you couldn't play our Claire. Iiwaka wasn't all that good at it; she just had the right connections. Would you be willing?"

"OH MY GOD!!" Anzu squealed in excitement. "Oh! Oh! I'd be honored Tatsuaki-sama! I-I mean, this is beyond what I dreamed I…I mean I never thought I'd get the role of…I mean-"

"She means yes," Yugi spoke up for his friend.

"Wonderful! It's a great relief to hear that. Iiwaka had no understudy and I know most of the other girls are very partial to the roles they've been assigned…it's strange that Iiwaka would get so upset that she would give up this role actually…she said something about the stage being haunted and some hairy little demon always messing up her dressing room…honestly I always thought Iiwaka was a little cracked."

Unnoticed by either of the other two Yugi crept over to the auditorium doors and peeled off a duel monsters card that had been tapped there.

"I'll show up bright and early for practice everyday, you'll see!" Anzu smiled.

"Very well then…until tomorrow," Tatsuaki bowed in parting before walking back into the auditorium.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS" Anzu screamed in joy the moment the pair reached the sidewalk. "I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M PLAYING THE LEAD ROLE IN MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BALLET, IT'S A DREAM COME TRUE!!!"

"I'm so glad that things worked out for you, Anzu-chan…will you still be able to make it to our meeting on Christmas Day though?" Yugi frowned in worry.

"Oh the performance is on Christmas Eve so unless the whole performance hall falls down around my ears during the finale, I'll definitely come, if only to yak your ear off about what it was like!" Anzu nodded wildly.

Then, must to Yugi's surprise, she lunged at him and swept him up into a kiss. "You are the best friend ever Yugi!"

"U-uh thank you," Yugi said in shock.

Anzu then whirled around and bounded off down the street, continuing to shout to the heavens her excitement.

Yugi watched her leave casually. Then he looked at his watch, blanched, and whirled off to his next stop completely unaware of the startled and pained crimson eyes staring out from the window of a neighboring store.

**CHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTERENDCHAPTEREND**

Masaka: Okay, this is definitely not going to end well. I can hear the screaming of 'You Made Anzu KISS Yugi? How could you?' already. Just CHILL OUT people! It's a plot okay, a plot in progress!!


	3. HoHoOh no

**Masaka:** okay I couldn't get this story up in time for LAST December but I'm pretty sure that if I start now, I can finish it!

**Yami Masaka:** And if not she'll just melt into a self-pitying little puddle of author goo…either way I get MY entertainment

**Masaka: flushed** thanks a lot yami, you're so supportive

**-C-H-A-P-T-E-R—S-T-A-R-T-**

It hadn't been Atem's intention to snoop. Generally he was very good at giving Yugi his privacy. But when he'd overheard Ryou talking to Bakura about Yugi running off in a fluster right after work Atem couldn't help but be intrigued.

Yugi had been so forceful when it came to doing things together. At first it had been out of a protective nature on the light's side to keep Atem from accidentally blowing up something because of his technophobia but as Christmas had rolled around the want to be together had transformed into a cozier sort of determination.

Having seen what he'd just seen Atem was no longer sure of why his aibou had done it.

It had been the ex-pharaoh's fantasy that Yugi had kept him around because of a certain unnamed affection but if Yugi was kissing Anzu then maybe that wasn't true. Maybe Yugi was just being a kind kid, like always, and was just helping Atem with his culture-shock.

Unsure of how to deal with these very dismal thoughts and not in the mood to run after his aibou to get bitten by even more despairing revelations Atem turned down the icy streets until he reached the normal café.

He was just about to grab the door-handle and step inside when the door was swung open from within and a familiar blonde came streaking out like he had the hounds of Anubis chasing his tail.

"Jou-" Atem started to call out but was interrupted by a much deeper and much more irritated voice.

"JOUNOUCHI! STOP DAMN IT!" Kaiba Seto roared as he charged out of the same café towards the rapidly disappearing blonde.

"JUST FORGET IT YOU SUPER-SIZED BASTARD!" Jou responded over his shoulder. "I HOPE SOMEONE SLIPS ARSENIC INTO YOUR CHRISTMAS EGG-NOG AND WE'LL ALL BE RID OF THE SCROOGE OF DOMINO!!"

Kaiba took a few steps to catch up with his companion but when it looked like there would be absolutely no way for him to reach the blonde without going into a ridiculous sprinting chase the brunette stopped and sighed heavily.

"I didn't mean to upset him that badly…"

"What in the name of the gods DID you say?" Atem spoke up causing the CEO to whirl around in a slight panic.

"Where the hell did you pop up from?" Kaiba snarled accusingly.

"Relax," Atem snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't see whatever little lover's tryst you had with Katsuya, I was just passing through."

"Don't call him Katsuya," Seto blushed, though it was probably the former implication he really had problems with.

Atem had seen into the taller man's heart many times so he knew Kaiba pretty well. He'd also been very good at reading his opponents and had been able to pick up on certain things a simple glimpse at the heart couldn't reveal to him.

Unfortunately Seto still hated the hell out of Atem so all the understanding in the world didn't make it any easier for the former pharaoh to talk to his rival.

Luckily, for some reason or another, it seemed that today Seto was too preoccupied to remember his Pride.

"You look about as crappy as I do," the young CEO sighed. "Want to go back inside and get drinks?"

Atem jolted slightly at this polite invitation but did the smart thing and simply nodded in acceptance.

****

Yugi dashed inside the shop breathing laboriously. His many years of being chased had taught him to be light on his feet but Yugi was still a rather weak kid. His stamina just wasn't good enough to allow for a ten mile jog through zero degree weather after already having taken a slip on ice.

"Yugi…are you okay? You look like hell." Otogi Ryuji asked as he walked around from behind his the store counter.

The proprietor of Dark Clown Games looked, if at all physically possible, even more handsome than he had during his first three years of high-school. His obsidian hair was no longer held in place by the teen's traditional red head-band creating a more cascading affect to his bangs. This veil of hair also seemed to affect the dicer's eyes making Otogi's already luminous emerald eyes inhumanely dazzling.

Yugi would have been more impressed by the sight if he did know the style change was rooted in heartbreak. Normally a guy who'd gotten dumped –as Otogi had gotten so unrelentingly dumped by Shizuka—would have cut their hair to show their rejection. Otogi had gone the opposite direction and let his hair get even longer, a fact that seemed to have relieved his distressed troupe of cheerleaders.

"O-oh, I'm just fine…R-Ryuji," Yugi panted up at his unfairly attractive companion. "I just…overexerted myself, is all."

Ryuji shrugged as if he didn't care either way and walked over to close the shop-door that had been thrown open by Yugi's hurricane arrival.

"Well as long as you aren't too tired to test the new arena it's really none of my business."

Because the gaming market was still so very hot Ryuji was attempting to revamp his game a little in time for the holidays. The new model of DDM was basically the same as the old, only there were a few more fantasy elements that added an element of Dungeons and Dragons.

If everything went as it was planned Monster Labyrinth would be another blow-out success for the young game-designer.

Yugi timidly removed his slightly damp coat and hung it on the coat-rack by the door. Ever since Ryuji had been rejected by Shizuka and had fallen out of the group it had been hard for Yugi to feel really comfortable around the emerald-eyed male.

Frankly Yugi had never gotten to know him even when they were close friends. Which was part of the reason Yugi was so devoted to his current course of action; the other part was, of course, all to do with his Yami.

"So if we get through testing today with no glitches everything will be finished, won't it?" Yugi smiled as Otogi turned and lead the shorter teen to the underground testing room.

"Yes, and then you can go back to your frantic little holiday preparations. You told me about your plans back in November but I didn't really think you were serious," Otogi snorted.

"I can be terribly disarming when I want to be; it will all work out," Yugi pouted at Otogi's back. He then took a steeling breath and asked. "You DO still plan to be part of it…don't you?"

"I promise, didn't I?" Otogi shrugged.

"But…you don't seem…happy about it," Yugi said hesitantly. He winced at how callous the words sounded. He knew Otogi wouldn't want to be anywhere near the people that crushed his heartthrob pride but Yugi really had to have everyone there for it to work.

Ryuji seemed to catch this fluke and looked curiously over his shoulder. He noticed Yugi's cringing look and actually managed a small but honest smile.

"I get the King Of Games himself to personal test and endorse my newest project during his busiest time of year, of course I'm happy…I'm just going to be a little…apprehensive."

"I'm sorry Ryuji, I know how much Shizuka's rejection still hurts you and then I go and act like-" Yugi started to apologize.

Otogi interrupted with a snort and glowered off into space. "What the woman did to me was not a rejection but a full out public castration. I have never been so humiliated. I had TEN florists sell me their entire stalk of red-roses and hired a top idol to write a song especially about Shizuka and then she goes and tells me she has no particular feelings for me…and that she even though I was a bit of a clichéd playboy."

"But you were attracted to her for her honesty," Yugi pointed out with a wry grin.

Otogi blinked himself out of his thoughts and looked over at Yugi in shock. A small snort of laughter escaped him before he could help it.

"I …I guess I did… didn't I?"

"And beside," Yugi said, leaping on this one opportunity, "I never thought you and Shizuka were a good match. I mean, you're very attractive and all but you have a sort of …higher-standard about romance than Shizuka does. You're the roses and wine type of guy while Shizuka is clearly a rented-movies and cola type girl. You need someone who has…great demands and will keep you on your toes."

"…I suppose that is true," Otogi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He then sighed broodingly and waved his hand elegantly in the air as if to brush away the conversation. "All that aside we have work to do."

Yugi sighed in exasperation but nodded. "Yes…we certainly do have a lot of work to do."

****

Seto and Atem both ordered coffee and took a back booth as far away from the happy holiday crowd as possible. Sitting amid the shadows they managed to look like dark spirits of Christmas Past filling the otherwise completely jovial café with at least one little patch of wariness.

"…Katsuya called me out to invite me to dinner with him," Seto admitted after five tense minutes of silent sipping. "He calls it a 'thank-you-dinner between two companions' but…his eyes were practically dripping with anxiety. I have the feeling he was desperate to run away."

"You unnerve him that's all," Atem shrugged, "an eighteen-year-old billionaire who has already proven he is quite mature on not only the mental and physical levels, but also the emotional level as well. Who wouldn't be unnerved by that?"

"He's such an idiot," Seto snorted. "He's always getting carried away by his emotions. He can't do anything part way, it's always I LOATHE this or I ADORE that."

"And you just happen to know how to press all his buttons so you get loathe, loathe, and really loathe," Atem snickered.

Seto cast his rival a silencing glower and, feeling too gloomy to be angry, Atem let the subject slide.

"So what's wrong with you? Normally you have this annoyingly strong happy aura around you but now…I'd say you look about as dour as I do," Kaiba asked after another minute of quiet.

"It's nothing," Atem answered immediately. He winced at how unconvincing that statement came out.

"…Well knowing you it can only be one of two things. Either something happened to your little clique, which I doubt otherwise Katsuya would have yelled at me about that as well…or…could it be something a little closer to heart?"

Atem tried not to squirm but he didn't really succeed. Kaiba noticed and grinned darkly.

"Ah so it is about the midget. What's wrong Atem? Did Yugi get seduced out of his sneakers by someone else before you could finally tell him about your undying affections?"

"…"

Kaiba's cup hit his saucer with a surprising clatter. "Oh my god, someone did seduce Yugi out from under you? And you let it happen?"

"He wasn't seduced…he just…never felt that way about me and I …I never made myself clear enough that he should feel any obligation towards me. It had probably been going on for a while and I just didn't notice," Atem flushed.

"But you LET it happen? You LET Yugi get taken away from you? By who?…God not that annoying Masaki woman that followed you around like a lost puppy for so long."

"Masaki did not act like a lost puppy," Atem snorted. "She's a very determined young woman who just happens to suffer from an excess of youth and inexperience. And I don't believe it was her that did the seducing but honestly…I have no idea what happened other than that they kissed…enthusiastically."

"A kiss, that's all? That's pathetic, your Yugi and that woman are two of a kind, both sappy sweet little drops of sunshine that ooze out charm from every pour. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a thank-you kiss or something."

Atem sighed in depression and leaned heavily against the table. "Even if that is true…it just points out how very far away I am from ever having that type of connection with him. I could never kiss Yugi so casually…I'm petty that way."

Seto stared at the usual unshakable gamer in surprise. The Egyptian man could handle a possible apocalypse and earth-shattering mental anguish but then got squeamishly frail about his feelings towards a ridiculously sweet kid like Yugi.

Somehow that made Atem seem very human.

Kaiba opened his mouth blindly, not really sure what sort of half-thought garbage he'd try playing when suddenly his cell-phone went off reminding him that he had a very hectic company that needed him.

"Damn those morons, I haven't been gone an hour," Seto grumbled as he looked over the caller id box. He snorted at the name and shoved the phone back in his coat-pocket but got up anyway.

"I have to get back to work," he dismissed himself curtly. "Tell me if you really do end up losing Yugi though…the look on your face will be one I'll simply HAVE to see."

"Oh go back to humiliating your own crush, Kaiba," Atem snapped back, causing Seto to flush with shame.

"HE was the one spouting plans about a ridiculous see-through date to ME!"

Atem just smirked in that totally annoying confident manner of his and Seto gave up. Even in conversation he was never going to win one over on that dumb Egyptian.

"Happy holidays," Kaiba snorted in parting.

"And a bah humbug to you too!"

****

Bakura loved the way Ryou smelled right after a shower. It was a mix of steam, skin and the sweetest, most delicate hint of buttermilk with honey. Added onto the fact that Ryou's skin was incredibly sensitive after coming out of the steam Bakura just found Ryou too perfect to let past unmolested. He just couldn't help but pull his hikari flush against his skin and nuzzle his nose into the boy's neck.

"B-B-BAKURA!!" Ryou shivered in that certain way that told the former thief he was doing things right regardless of the words coming out of that luscious mouth. "W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING? MY FATHER WILL BE HERE ANY MINUTE!"

"I know, I know," Bakura dismiss his hikari's words with ease. "But it's not as if he'll just come marching into the house without some much as ringing the doorbell. And besides, if you were REALLY worried about him seeing us, you would have taken extra precaution not to tempt me by walking your sexy flushed self out in front of me in nothing but your precious little white bathrobe."

Ryou's skin under Bakura's lips turned that beautiful baby pink color that Bakura just found so damned cute. For all the stuff they had done since Bakura had returned Ryou really was too shy. Of course that was just part and parcel of the delicious lover that was Ryou and it was just another thing Bakura loved about the boy.

"I-I d-didn't come out here to s-seduce you; I j-just came in t-to get a new c-change-," Ryou took a deep breath, "a change of clothes. I want to look presentable to my father when he arrives and I-"

Bakura tugged the knot out of the robe and parted the cloth so he could lay a kiss against the center of Ryou's chest. He found that so long as he stayed away from any outrightprovocative place, --such as Ryou's delicately peeked nipples that were also within his reach at this moment--, Bakura could get away with kissing his Ryou in all sorts of interesting places without being called a sleaze or a satyromaniac or any of the other clever terms his Ryou called him when Bakura acted too forward.

"You always look best when you're dazed and sated," Bakura said tenderly, purposefully keeping his lips against Ryou's skin as he spoke. "You get this glow about you that's just downright gorgeous…you'll greet your dear old dad with the looks of the gods-damn Christmas angel once I'm finished with you."

"B-Bakura," Ryou whimpered, "really he'll be here any second, and he already disapproves of our relationship without knowing how…how much we do together so just-"

"I will, I will," Bakura said calmly as he slid off his own shirt, undid his top jean button and pulled Ryou towards his lap, "I promised I wouldn't do anything until he left and I'll keep to that…but that promise only starts when the old codger ACTUALLY GETS HERE…which is BOUND to take another two hours at least…and you know how much pleasure I can milk out of two hours don't you my precious Ryou?"

Oh Ryou was just about ready now. He was biting his lower lip in the way he always did when his horny-side was just about taking over his prim-and-proper side. And it was about time too; staying still this long was driving Bakura NUTS. His lips ached to nibble on the skin that he was pressed against.

"I…I guess…we could take a shower together afterwards…and…and if we just …real quick…I don't suppose…" Ryou relented timidly.

'_Thank the gods, and God himself!'_ Bakura cheered wickedly as he more aggressively pulled his delicious prize down onto the couch. '_Thank god for houses with baths on the first floor so far away from the bedroom, and for cute little robes that are so easy to untie, and thank you, thank you, THANK YOU GOD for blessed little lights that smell so damn tasty after they scrub their naughty-selves all squeaky clean!'_

Bakura and Ryou rolled around for a bit, fully stroking each other's bodies in the shuffle until Bakura was comfortably on top of his partner. Bakura shoved the folds of Ryou's robe further apart and he finally got his nip of that pretty snowflake colored skin. But, of course, that wasn't good enough, it was never good enough. The REAL tasty part was still to come! Oh was it ever!

Bakura grinned devilishly at his angelic light and began to nip down the boy's chest towards the seat of all that buttermilk sweetness…when suddenly a chill swept into the room from behind and Ryou got very, very still.

"D-DAD! Y-You're early!" Ryou yelped.

Bakura looked over his shoulder in stunned disbelief to see the rail-thin linguistics professor standing in the doorway with what had to be the most pissed-off look that even Bakura himself had ever seen. And as Bakura had faced down the rather hellish looks of many a blood-thirsty villain from his bloody childhood onward that was really saying something.

'_Crap.'_

"Uh…hey…Bakura-san…um…merry Christmas?" the former thief –now definitely future eunuch—grinned pleasantly while Ryou scrambled frantically to retie his robe.

"Oh, this is not going to be a happy holiday for you, _Kamenwati_," Leonardo Bakura frowned with sinister intent, all but hissing out Bakura's actual ancient name in that perfect way only a linguistics professor could. "Not at all."

'_Double crap.'_

**-C-H-A-P-T-E-R—E-N-D-**

**Masaka and Yami Masaka:** **both blissful **What a great chapter

**Masaka:** No one is running away with their lines! No one is demanding more attention than they should! Oh this story is really going to go on-schedule like this!!

**Yami Masaka:** And such wonderful limey goodness! Our other story doesn't allow for such citrus-flavor (though we have tried) so this boy-on-boy is just great heart-candy

**Jason the Muse Dog-Boy:** Ugh you two are so sickeningly happy right now I could choke.

**Masaka and Yami Masaka: still blissful** Shut up Jason


	4. One Kuriboh in a Pear Tree

**Masaka: -dragging in a large ominous machine-**

**Yami Masaka: -looks up from her snacks and chocks-** A-aibou…w-what's that?

**Masaka: **Just something I intend to use to squeeze some inspiration from my muse **–flips an even more ominous switch-**

**Jason:** ALL IMAGINARY CREATIONS HIT THE DECK!! **–huddles on the floor with his arms over his head-**

**-The machine starts to blow manmade snow into the air-**

**Yami Masaka: -peeks up from her huddle behind Jason- **W-what the …**-whacks Jason with her one of her high-heels- **You moron, you got me all worked up for nothing!

**Jason:** Eh…gotcha? Heh-heh…heh?

CHAPTERSTART

Seto didn't particularly HATE Christmas. It was a decent holiday where the business world, ever-consuming though it was, allowed him a moment with his little brother. Hell, even when Gozuburo was alive and in charge of KC he'd given Seto his space on the holiday.

What Seto DIDN'T like was the holiday rush leading UP to Christmas. From November through to the hallowed Eve it was balls to the walls at the company. The CEO had to confer with his advertising team on the holiday advertisement scheme, he had to make sure that the KC Santa was up to snuff; he had to argue with his suppliers to make sure they kept their prices low so that parents wouldn't buy a cheap knock-off duel-disk to save a few dollars on the holiday budget. He had to arrange for bonuses for all the applicable employees and had to set up a Christmas Eve Party.

Then there was the gift-giving part of Christmas that Seto would rather do without. He had to go over a list with his head secretary over which business partners got what. He also had to schedule time with his head housekeeper to review a list of presents for Mokuba –that he never bought or wrapped himself because if he ever went into a store he'd be mobbed by fans—and all the other less important people on his personal Christmas gift-list.

And on top of all that Seto still had to wade through the kiss-ass gifts every morning and spend his lunch-hour turning down the hundreds of party invitations he received as politely as he could.

By the end of the average day in December, Seto Kaiba was one worn-out puppy. Today was no exception.

"God, what I wouldn't give to kill the moron that invented singing greeting cards," the young brunette groaned to himself as yet another letter began to belt out a very poorly recorded version of Jingle Bell Rock.

With his right hand Seto rummaged through his desk drawer for his medicine, the other hand buzzed his secretary.

"Araki-san! Please tell me your finished compiling that list," Kaiba groaned. Normally he'd conduct himself in an icy professional demeanor towards all his employees but his house-staff and his head secretary were special. They managed to annoy him ninety-percent less than most people did. This was probably the reason WHY they were his house-staff and head secretary.

"I apologize for the wait Kaiba-sama," a slightly older female voice echoed through the call-box on his desk; "it seems there were quite a few more callers this year than last."

"Just great," Kaiba grumbled to himself as he dry-swallowed his migraine pills.

"I'm sorry sir, though you know it would really help if you could give me a conclusive answer as to what I'm supposed to buy for that Jounouchi person you had me add onto the list," Araki said firmly but apologetically.

She was a great woman who never put up with Kaiba's temper which was much preferable to the other secretaries he'd had who would just burst into tears whenever Kaiba felt a screaming tantrum about coffee or one of the easier control things in his life come over him.

It wasn't his fault he got so angry; he had stress issues. He had to let that vent out somewhere and sometimes it was just their bad luck that those girls had to get a glimpse of it. It wasn't like he even yelled at THEM, just the coffee machines, or the lists or the other little things that broke at the least convenient moment. And Kaiba always apologized right afterwards and went right back to his controlled and complimentary ways.

"I know Araki, and I'll get back to you as soon as I decide until then-" the buzzer from security went off causing a very uncomplimentary four lettered word to burst from Seto's lips. "-Hold on, I have another call."

Kaiba jabbed the controls a little harder than necessary and barked; "WHAT THE HELL IS IT?"

"U-Um Mister Kaiba…sir…I um…I think you should come down here to the Santa Station…there is a little problem going on with Murakami and um the elves," the poor security guard explained.

Kaiba massaged his aching head in his hand and muttered a curse against all Egyptian spirits and their deceptive coffee-table manners then told the man he was on his way.

Christmas, Kaiba decided, was not his favorite holiday after all.

SCENECHANGE

After yesterday's whole depressing affair Atem had gone home and slept like the dead, not even bothering to contact Yugi before hitting the mattress. But because of this the next morning had been very rough and awkward, leading towards a distant between the two star-heads…which also inevitably led to this current situation.

"Come on Motu-kun," Murakami drooled, as he motioned Yugi to bend over further, "you heard the costumers, they want you in this shot as well, and they want you looking your very sexiest."

"T-They're too old to even BE in this line!" Yugi wailed pointing zealously to the two eighteen-year-old yakuza kids flanking the rather aggrieved Santa Claus like demented bodyguards.

"That hurts elf," the taller of the two yakuza smirked with a hand over his heart, "how can you say that we're too old to appreciate the magic of Christmas? We've got every right to be here, and every right to commemorate the occasion, so just pose and we'll be outta here in a minute."

"You'll be leaving sooner than that!" Bakura growled, yanking off his hat and stomping over the mounds of fake-snow.

"No! Bakura! There are kids present!" Ryou yelped grabbing his lover by the waist.

"Well then Atem can do it!" Bakura snapped, not really thinking clearly about the issue. If he had been he'd have remembered that Atem tended to be a lot more …graphic than Bakura.

Bakura sent idiots to the Shadow Realm, cleanly efficiently and with all the stealth a successful thief should possess. As for Atem…well the ever outstanding ex-pharaoh was much more likely to blast an opponent's brains out or left debilitating curses in his victim's rattling skulls. That kind of image was a lot worse on children.

"Huh what?" Atem jolted at the mention of his name. He then looked over at the Santa's throne and finally noticed what was happening. "What are you guys doing to Yugi?"

Bakura looked about ready to tear Atem a new one for being such an air-head when luckily the troops arrived…sort of.

All Kaiba Seto had to do was walk into the room glowering and the two punks who had thought they were so tough decided that there was nothing wrong with backing off from a joke either. In fact, they instantly knew that there was nothing wrong with stopping a joke mid-execution and abandoning the building all together in light of Kaiba's temper, nothing wrong with that at all.

"Murakami!" Kaiba snapped shortly causing said pervert to jump about a foot in the air from sheer blood-stopping fear.

"Y-Yes sir?" the leech asked meekly, dropping the client's abandoned camera like it was on fire.

"Get this line moving again…I'm borrowing Yugi," Seto said putting a protective arm around Yugi's shoulders and steering him out of the Santa Station towards the express elevator he'd just come from.

"B-But Kaiba-san you already had Katsu-" Murakami began to complain. He then got a good look at those laser blue eyes of Kaiba and relented. "Never mind."

Atem looked curiously between Seto and Yugi.

"Is there something you need to talk to my hikari about, Kaiba?"

"Just hand out candy-canes like a good little elf, Atem," Kaiba smirked before whisking Yugi away in a graceful flare of his coal-black coat.

Atem just stood there gapping in impotent rage at Kaiba while behind him Murakami began a cursing story about spoiled CEOs who get their greedy mitts on all the best boys.

Bakura just smirked like the Grinch who'd just come up his terrible, horrible, awful idea and snuck off into the backroom.

The poor Santa and the bewildered Ryou more responsibly went back to listening to little children's wishes and spreading the yuletide cheer. Or at the very least pretending to, and that was just about all you could ask of anyone given the situation.

SCENECHANGE

Yugi had been to Kaiba's office on only three occasions. The first time had been when Kaiba had offered him a job after Atem had been missing –in a weird way that offer had been Kaiba's form of condolences--. The second time he had been with Ryou and Malik, coming to ask Seto for the funds and the black-market skills to both physically and legally give life to the ancient spirits. And the third time had been when Yugi had come to thank Kaiba for his help with the Jounouchi/Murakami scandal.

None of these three times had been very comfortable, mostly because Kaiba's office seemed to have the man's aura painted so strongly over every inch that Yugi felt like he was getting suffocated every time he crossed the doorway. Also Yugi was always a bit hesitant around authority figures, particularly if they were closer to his own age. That had been the reason why some of the worse teachers at Domino had needed Atem's special attention more than anything to do with Yugi's own weaknesses.

This time around, however, Yugi didn't feel anywhere near as anxious as he usually did. That Kaiba was inviting him in, rather than Yugi having to make the first move, took a lot of tension off the little elf's shoulders. And because of this he was able to notice the nice homey changes the young CEO had made to his rather bland office to make it cozier.

There was no more monochromatic blue carpeting and blue couches and lifeless gray walls. Instead Kaiba had gotten plush green carpeting and a mahogany leather loveseat, two armchairs and a cherry-stained coffee-table.

Kaiba had also added some mahogany bookshelves against the walls to add a sort of library like feel to the room. And Yugi would bet every single book on the shelves was a book Seto Kaiba had read or used in his business.

The wall with the television embedded into the plaster was still the same, only at Mokuba's request, Yugi guessed, there was a shelf bellow this flat-screen, providing a case for a dvd player, four game-systems and a small row of movies.

All in all the office looked more inviting. Kaiba Seto had to spend a lot of time within these walls so it was understandable that the guy would get around to making it a place worth staying. Which hopefully meant, if Yugi was reading the signs right, that Kaiba was trying to become a friendlier person instead of his awe-inspiring corporate self?

"Have a seat," Seto motioned to the chairs as he himself strolled over to his own impressive full-functioned desk chair. It was the prize of all the new accessories, with headphones in the headrest, massage features, great reclining controls and heating coils in the seat-cushion and leg-rest.

Yugi nodded gently and sat down delicately on the armchair closest to the desk. He was still a little wary about his uniform and figured the first time he sat down carelessly it would be the last time the color and character of his underwear would be secret.

"I'm sorry about Murakami, I honestly have no idea what idiot hired him," Kaiba sighed warily. "Rest assured once I find out, both Murakami and said moron will be finding new employment."

"It's really all right Seto," Yugi smiled. He then titled his head curiously to one side. "But Murakami isn't the real reason I'm in your office…is it?"

"…Damn you two are way too good at reading the situation," Kaiba grumbled. He leaned forward against his desk and templed his fingers sternly under his chin.

"I had a little talk with your darker-half yesterday Yugi and a subject came up that I'm just dying to know more about."

"A talk with Yami?" Yugi blinked curiously. "What about?"

"About a certain action taken place with a certain female you know," Seto smirked eagerly. "Apparently you and Anzu Masaki are a couple now."

"Me and ANZU?" Yugi blanched. "Ugh! Gross! That'd be like Malik dating Ishizu!"

"And yet you two supposedly kissed yesterday….according to your other," Kaiba said casually. It was weird to see the brunette so eager to gossip, but then again it was rare that Atem had something scandalous enough happening in his life the gossip could be created.

Despite all the allowances made by everyone involved, the group's rivals still loved to taunt each other. And Seto was a little bit more ambitious than the others at finding new angles of ridicule to exploit.

"We…oh! OH! That wasn't a kiss…not, like, a REAL kiss," Yugi blushed. "Anzu was just happy that she got accepted into this year's production of the Nutcracker and she well…obviously got carried away."

Yugi then looked up from his lap in concern. "How did you…I mean what did Yami say about it? And how did he even know about it anyway?"

"Apparently he was stalking you," Seto shrugged and leaned back in his chair with a sigh of disappointment. Obviously the gossip had lost its flavor with the truth. "He's apparently quite obsessed with you. I seriously believe that man would move the earth to the center of the sun if you just asked him to."

"He…he actually said that?" Yugi stared incredulously.

"Not in so many words, but the feeling was definitely there," Seto shrugged again. He then sighed. "I just wanted to hear the story from you. Take the rest of the day off if you like, Murakami-trauma is something I feel qualifies as a good excuse for leaving early."

Yugi flushed and shook his head, self-consciously tugging at the hem of his skirt. He was just now starting to feel a little ashamed of his costume.

"It's alright. I want to work. It's…fun…when Murakami isn't around anyway. It reminds me of when I used to be one of those kids waiting for my turn in Santa's lap…besides I have…commitments that demand I keep this job."

"That's very admirable of you," Seto smirked kindly.

Yugi was about to rise when he caught sight of something very interesting; amid all the new decorations and furniture there was a particularly startling new addition…namely a silver picture-frame on Kaiba's desk holding a photo of, not Mokuba, but Katsuya.

"Is that-" Yugi started to ask. Kaiba's reaction was quicker though. The brunette swept the photo –and everything else on his desk—into a desk-drawer and he slammed that drawer very firmly shut.

"It's nothing."

Yugi gapped at the very unusual behavior then smiled very charmingly. So charmingly in fact that Seto broke out into a nervous sweat because of it.

The last time he'd seen the much charm, he'd been blackballed into the grave-robbing business for the sake of spirits he would have rather not have seen reanimated.

"What?" Seto snarled defensively.

"Katsuya is very fond of you too," Yugi smiled. "He just can't admit it. Jou has always been bad with words. His very first words of friendship to me even were totally corny. He's always better at just showing his affections if given the chance."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Kaiba coughed awkwardly.

"…Because you want to know, and if I tell you, you'll do what I want later on," Yugi explained simply.

Because he could tell that he was already pushing his luck, Yugi chose not to comment on how oddly cute Seto looked when he was blushing. He just made sure to store that image deep inside his mind for the next time he had business with the CEO.

"I'm sure that I could put in a good word for you with Katsuya, if you want," Yugi smiled gently. "It wouldn't be any trouble and-"

"Just beat it, Moto," Kaiba flushed an even darker shade of red. Yugi bit his lower lip to hold in a desperate laugh and bowed politely.

As he was leaving Yugi couldn't help but take one last peek at his temporary boss and found Seto staring down at his hands with what could have been the most conflicted look Yugi had ever seen.

"I'll have to add this to my list then," Yugi said quietly to himself before gently shutting the door.

SCENECHANGE

Bakura had always been talented at setting up traps even before he'd taken on the role of shadowy avenger. His natural inclination was to be sneaky and to cause mayhem. Over the course of the last few thousand years Bakura had managed to refine this inclination into a way of living.

Bakura knew that the perfect type of prank was one which was righteous in its delivery. If you attacked a friend with a spring-loaded water-balloon or a shampoo-bottle of Nair, you tended to get your ass handed back to you on a platter. However, if you preformed such tricks –or worse- against the local punk ass, you were hailed a hero and given that much more attention by your hikari.

So without feeling much more than a twinge of conscious Bakura had set up what had to be one of his favorite pranks around the Santa's castle. He called it the 'hook and humble.'

"Oh Muuuuuuuurakaaaaaami-sempai!" Bakura crooned to his boss after he'd made sure the last bolt was in place. "Can you come over here a minute please?"

Murakami looked up from his clipboard –which Bakrua's sharp eyes could see was covered with particularly crude doodles of a certain brunette billionaire getting whumped in all sorts of violent manners-and snorted heavily in Bakura's direction.

"What is it Bakura-san?" the leech asked.

"There is a little problem with this Christmas tree's lights. This light on this side won't come on," Bakura said, feeling an urge to stay in theme with his very Grinchy mood.

"Oh for GOD'S SAKE!!" Murakami wailed, scaring a pair of six-year-old girls who were standing in line. "Is everything around here messed up?"

With glee Bakura watched Murakami come closer and closer then-

'WHOOOOOSH!'

The pervert of Domino stepped in the simple rope loop that Bakura had set up with a little of the extra wiring, wrenching the boy legs-first up into the rafters. Bakura then rushed up and yanked the teen's jeans down to his booties and used one of the decorative giant candy canes he'd picked up to smack the pervert's hinny Rudolph red.

(A/N: This…isn't sneaky at all…is it? **Bakura: blush** s-shut up I was in a rush!)

"Happy Holidays sempai!" Bakura cackled happily.

He was feeling pretty jazzed now that his deed was done and for an extra thrill he pulled out a permanent marker and doodled an upside down Santa face across Murakami's exposed belly. The six-year old girls clapped approvingly, though their mothers looked a little punch-drunk from the suddenness of it all.

"W-wh-wha-what the hell is this Bakrua! You can't treat your superior this way! I'll report you-"

"To who? Kaiba hates your pasty guts," Bakura snorted, jabbing the pervert in the ribs just hard enough to start the boy on a nauseating upside-down spin.

"AAAARRGH! GET ME DOOOOWN!!" Murakami wailed.

"If I promise to cut you down, do you promise to not hit on anyone who is unfortunate enough to work with you from now until the end of time?" Bakura asked with a jaunty smirk.

"Yes, yes now get me down!" Murakami wailed, as he tried to pull his pants back up to his hips at the same time he tried to pull down his shirt.

"Super duper promise?" Bakura asked.

"Super duper promise!" Murakami wailed.

"Really?" Bakura cackled.

"REALLY!" Murakami wailed.

"Weeeell," Bakura sighed tauntingly.

"Please!!!" Murakami squealed like a piglet.

Bakura smirked but didn't make a move towards the lights. That was he didn't…until he noticed one of the girls looking dolefully at him with chocolate brown eyes the same shade as Ryou's.

The very implication of his light was enough to make Bakura pull out his pocket-knife from his belt and clip the wire. "Okay then."

Murakami fell to the ground in a spectacular explosion of fake snow and tinsel. The six year olds whooped approvingly and Bakura proudly polished his nails against his shirt breast.

Mission 'Prank the Perv' was accomplished.

"What in GOD'S NAME is going on over here?" a heart-stoppingly familiar voice scowled from behind causing Bakrua's confidence to wilt.

"Triple crap," Bakura winced as he anxiously looked over his shoulder at Ryou's father.

He may have been a good prankster but it was apparent that his parent-impressing skills would take another millennium to cultivate. If he lived that long.

"Hello Mister um…Bakura," Bakura winced, wishing for the hundredth-millionth time that he hadn't taken Ryou's surname for his own. It made things so much more complicated, in an already too complicated situation.

"So this is how you go about being a 'decent member of society' is it?" Leonardo snorted back one of the defenses Ryou had hastily formed for Bakura's sake the previous night.

Leonardo had not been quite so furious about the whole….couch-thing…as he seemed to have been royally ticked off about who Ryou had chosen to engage in …couch-things…with. By the historian-Bakura's understanding the ancient spirit was just a no account, skill-less, ambitious-less sponge who was preying off his obscenely younger partner.

'Kamenwati' had surged to protest against the ambitious-less insult, nearly bringing up the dreaded 'Z' subject when Ryou had leapt in and told his father that Kamenwati was really a good guy, mentioning how he had taken a job at KC. The company title had given Kamenwati a little lee-way but as Leonardo's eyes were now dipping into previously unimagined shades of red, the ex-thief figured that whatever good impression employment with KC might have made for him, Bakura's stupid need to play devil's advocate had ruined it.

"Uh…I can…explain this," Bakura coughed awkwardly.

"Oh I'm sure you can," Leonardo snorted, crossing his arms sternly across his chest.

"Uh what you um…have to understand is that um…Murakami here is a pervert and I was just doing my part to take down um…behavior of this sort in the workplace with um…harsh…example," Bakura floundered for words.

He was actually feeling a little ridiculous. He could talk down gods and pharaohs and terrify the living-souls out of fully-armed well-trained soldiers…but he couldn't hold his own against his beloved's old man. There was definitely some irony in that somewhere, but Bakura couldn't quite figure out how it would be worded.

"How very responsible of you, Kamenwati," Leo smiled icily. "I suppose you'll be letting him hang you up next then. After all, I do seem to remember some rather inappropriate behavior on your part yesterday."

"HEY! Ryou was willing!" Bakura snapped, before he realized just how little such statements would help him. "I mean…well that is …we weren't in public so it's different and…do we really have to have this conversation here? There are children present…and all that."

"You are right…perhaps we should go…to where there are no witnesses," Leonardo Bakura snarled.

"Ah…that's…not what I meant," Bakura chocked over his sudden fear for not only his masculinity but his very life.

"You should know-" Leonardo started, but was interrupted by Ryou come around the corner.

"Bakura what was all the yelling abou-" Ryou started to ask, before catching full sight of the scene and heaving a exhausted sigh. "Oh Bakura, what am I going to do with you."

Kamenwati smiled apologetically at his hikari and hoped to the gods and even God that Leonardo was a good Japanese citizen and hadn't broken any of the strict gun-control laws of the country.

SCENECHANGE

Mokuba had been patient with his brother. In fact, he had been overwhelmingly we-should-nominate-the-kid-for-sainthood patient with his all too patience-abusing brother.

That patience, however, had just reached its end.

"That idiot CANNOT keep screwing around like this if he ever wants to get anywhere!" Mokuba stomped his foot impatiently against the elevator floor as he waited to arrive at the top-floor. "He's a CEO for goodness's sake! You'd figure he'd be the one to appreciate the importance of taking full advantage of every opportunity but NNNOOOOO not my brother."

The matter that had Mokuba in a huff, as you might expect, was the Jounouchi matter.

Mokuba had known about his brother and Jou's 'totally-sociable-not-at-all-suggestive-long-overdue-thank-you' coffee date. In fact Mokuba had actually jury-rigged Seto's collar-microphone with a button-hole camera so that he could keep an eye on this interaction. He was, after all, as responsible for his brother's social behavior as Seto was responsible for Mokuba's physical welfare (A/N: which probably explains why the boys are always in so much trouble).

And when Mokuba saw and heard Seto take that one defensive teasing step that sent Jounouchi running in a humiliated, infuriated huff the younger Kaiba had reached the end of his endurance.

"I'm gonna give him a telling-off like no other! I CAN'T STAND THIS! Like it wasn't hard enough getting Domino Tower to rearrange its scheduling so Serenity would be busy on Christmas Eve leaving Jou in the perfect situation for Seto to take him on a romantic date! Ooooh there is NO WAY all my butt-kissing and palm-greasing is going to be brushed off THAT easily! I'LL FIGHT!" Mokuba continued to rant as he hopped off the elevator and stalked straight to the office door. "I'll perform a sit-in! No! I'll do a guerilla warfare attack on his precious car and have the snow-plows bury it under a drift ten-foot high! No! I won't even do that I'll-"

Before Mokuba had time to decide what he would do the door to Seto's office came winging open and a very anger-dissolving body came walking calmly out.

"Elf-san," Mokuba blinked, still not quite over the great shock and awe value of Yugi in an elf-girl costume.

"Huh…oh, hello Mokuba-kun, good to see you," Yugi said formally.

"Err…hi…Yugi," Mokuba shook his head to hopefully overcome the need to giggle. "What were you doing in my brother's office?"

"Ah well…how to explain um…Murakami," Yugi sighed.

"Oh, no further explanation needed then," Mokuba smirked sympathetically. The boy then tilted his head curiously to one side and asked. "But if it's just another perv-alert, why do you look so troubled?"

"I-I look troubled?" Yugi blinked.

"Sort of…you've got this little frown-line between your eyes that you always get when something is wrong. Usually you get it right before Seto does something stupid like invite a psychopathic spirit into one of his game tournaments," Mokuba explained himself.

"I'm just a little…worried," Yugi self-consciously rubbed at said wrinkle spot, "about all the arrangements I still have to make for the holiday. Your brother's current err…crush…just got added to the list so now I have a little less time for-"

"OH MY GOSH! YOU SEE IT TOO!" Mokuba whooped, grabbing Yugi's hands ecstatically in his own. (A/N: blame his American private English tutor for the behavior).

"S-see wha- Mokuba, the secretary is staring," Yugi blushed.

"Oh, sorry, sorry," Mokuba let go off the teenager's hands with a laugh. "It's just…well I'm so glad I've got a comrade in arms in this you see! I've been trying to get my brother and Jou together for MONTHS and so far no go, but if YOU help me I'm sure things will turn out all right."

Yugi sighed heavily and leaned weakly against the wall; "That exactly it though, I don't know how I can help when I have so many other people I'm looking after as well."

"Oh, but you're the Yu-Gi-Oh! You've got to have at least one LITTLE plan up your pom-pom decorated sleeve!" Mokuba sobbed.

"…Well…" Yugi said thoughtfully. "There is ONE thing that might work…but you know I don't think I have time to-"

"THEN I'LL DO IT!" Mokuba raised his hand like he was volunteering to answer a question. "I'll follow your plans to the letter, chief! I'll take care of everything by my lonesome and you can focus on your other good deeds! I've got a whole team of body-guards to help me and everything."

Yugi looked thoughtfully out the window for a moment then smirked and laid out his plan.

Mokuba was never sure how Yugi did it really. The boy had a lackadaisical sort of work-ethic and very little appreciation for studying but at times of great crisis…Yugi truly had the best strategies up his sleeve. And this particular plan that Yugi had for his brother and Jounouchi was definitely a world-saver.

"The only problem with it is that I don't know if I can get the restaurant to agree, not to mention it will be hard finding the sort of actors that will pull this off," Yugi sighed in conclusion.

"Hey I was already working with the restaurant over for my own plans and I KNOW the KaibaCorp directory will be able to lead me to some starving artist capable of pulling such as job so I'm sure I can pull a little extra finagling will be no problem at all…I just hope Serenity doesn't mind giving up her reservation," Mokuba winked encouragingly.

"Serenity is probably even MORE desperate to get her brother and your brother together than the two of us combined. If Anzu has taught me anything it is to never, ever underestimate the motivating power of potential romance to the female mind," Yugi replied slightly less jubilant grin.

Mokuba noticed the less than sunshine glow about the duelist and had to ask; "is everything alright with you?"

"No…right now it's not alright but I hope…I hope it will be soon," Yugi said ambiguously before patting Mokuba encouragingly on the shoulder and walking off towards the elevator.

Mokuba huffed in frustration at the dismissal and yelled after him; "The whole lone suffering hero thing works better with PANTS, Motu-saaaaan!"

Gratifyingly Yugi squeaked in embarrassment and ran off into the safety of the elevators.

"So now I have a King of Game's approved plan of action," Mokuba thought over his new strategy gleefully. "Hmmm maybe this Christmas really WILL be a great one after all."

SCENECHANGE

He was exhausted really. Not enough that he felt it was right to trouble Mokuba, but all the same he was tired.

"Mou hitori no boku was just scolding me about not respecting my own limits," Yugi chuckled slightly as he pressed his slightly aching head against the cold glass of the elevator wall. "He told me that I should watch how many responsibilities I take on at once."

What Atem had actually said was that Yugi should monitor his 'ka' more closely and that Yugi should temper how brilliantly he let it flare because 'light-ka' was always most at risk for burning out.

Still Yugi had recognized that his other was talking about more than dueling energy.

"Ah! Speaking of duel-monsters!" Yugi jolted out of his daze.

The small game king reached for his deck-sling which was tucked under his elf-suit around his waist (A/N: at least it wasn't on a thigh holster! _).

With the greatest ease Yugi took Kuriboh's card into his hand and let his energy draw the fuzzy spirit into his reality.

"Kreee," Kuriboh crooned happily, nuzzling itself against the crook of Yugi's neck with uttermost affection.

"H-Hey that tickles," Yugi laughed but let the monster do as he wished.

Bakura and Atem had both told Yugi that he spoiled his deck with too much freedom by allowing things like this but Yugi had always thought that it was better to let monsters embrace their masters on their own terms.

Even the most chatter-box spirit only annoyed its companions out of affection.

(A/N: Chazz would hate to hear that wouldn't he? Oops! No GX!)

"I'm sorry I haven't been very gracious these past few weeks, even after asking you to look in on the ballet company, huh?" Yugi rubbed the small monster's head tenderly.

"Buuuu," Kuriboh accepted the apology graciously.

"Though I STILL can't believe you haunted that primma ballerina like that."

Kuriboh growled angrily and head-butted Yugi's ribs a few times in a meaningful way.

"Whoa. Whoa take it easy! I believe you when you say Iiwaka-san had it coming! You wouldn't punish someone unless provoked I know," Yugi laughed and scooped the monster up delicately into his hands.

"Anzu-chan probably WOULD have been overlooked it that woman had her way. Anzu has always stood out a little too much for her own good. She can't help attracting trouble, it's in her ka."

Kuriboh gave Yugi a calculating look then crooned out a suggestion that made Yugi blush heavy rhubarb.

"KURIBOH, NOT YOU TOO! I told you that Anzu is a friend, nothing more!" Yugi wailed.

Shaking his head ruefully Yugi had to admit that he and Masaki probably did look like a couple to many people. They cared for each other on a level most friends didn't. All of Yugi-tachi was like that really but because Anzu was a girl there were always those who would see more than was really there.

It probably didn't help matters that Anzu and Yugi HAD liked each other for a while before realizing they preferred their close friendship to the awkwardness of an ill-attempted romance.

"Maybe…maybe I should be clearer about the distinction myself," Yugi thought aloud. "If even my friends are seeing things that aren't then…"

Kuriboh butted Yugi in the ribs again, bringing Yugi's attention back to the present.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not abandoning the plan. I couldn't even if I wanted to. Talking to mou hitori no boku would just be…another type of preparation."

Kuriboh nodded approvingly then crooned out a question.

"Huh? Well I wouldn't say no to more help if you think you could convince some of the others," Yugi then groaned and tilted his head to one side. "I'm almost starting to think I should have let Dark Magician Girl have at with Otogi already. SHE could break through his gloom if anyone could."

Kuriboh made a strange clucking noise in his throat and did a belly-roll. Yugi blushed for a moment then nodded.

"No they are going to go perfectly together I know that. They do have the same flashy streak," Yugi then chuckled. "I'm just glad Rebecca agreed to bring her along. You've got to keep this between us but honestly I think Becca is tougher to control than Exodia."

Kuriboh agreed. The little blonde had been terrifying in her pursuit of Yugi's love. Even a continent away Rebecca had always been able to tell when Yugi wasn't eating right or when he was having homework issues.

Yugi was glad that he'd been able to save their friendship after Atem had returned and Yugi'd HAD to tell the girl he was never going to be able to love her 'in that way'. Rebecca had raved and cried but Yugi's honesty had been just what the girl had needed to get her searching for love in her own age-bracket again.

"She and that Leon von Shrouder kid really are perfect together. His love of childish things forces Rebecca to remember her own age."

"Kreee buuh…buh kreee," Kuriboh pointed out articulately.

"No, you're right. They're all well-balanced couples…or they could be if they'd get out of their own way," Yugi sighed.

The elevator binged as it reached the proper floor and regretfully Yugi moved to send Kuriboh back home.

"Sorry again. That thank-you attempt went off in a weird direction. Maybe I really am under too much stress."

Kuriboh attacked Yugi's neck again causing the boy to laugh.

"Yes! Yes! You take care too, okay?"

With a last nod Kuriboh vanished leaving Yugi with a slightly painful twinge in his chest but nothing more.

"I promise I'll be careful. But I think it will all work out. They are my friends, they shouldn't need THAT much effort."

The door slid open to the dramatic battle of auras sparking between Leonardo Bakura and Kamenwati Kul-Elna Bakura.

"Oh yah, they're MY friends," Yugi groaned.

SCENECHANGE

Serenity hung up the phone and woefully shook her head. She approved of this plan Mokuba and Yugi had concocted but on some selfish level she still felt robbed.

"I know this will work, my brother has always been a sucker for a pretty-face…and …yet," Serenity sighed.

The problem with this whole thing was her brother's pride. Jou was the warmest soul Serenity had ever known but he could be so terribly skittish.

The tough-life he had lived with Jounouchi Sr.'s drunken disinterest and then his former gang's deadly affection had made Jou himself skeptical about love. He certainly believed in its power –with a friend like Yugi it wasn't hard—at the same time the blonde feared it.

Jou could handle lover's quarrels and friendly misunderstandings but only if the only person gave him a clear sign of affection to start off with. If there wasn't that spark on the other end, however, and Jou was supposed to be the one to make the first move then things tended to go badly.

Seto Kaiba didn't seem like a man likely to let down his own guard for that long. Serenity knew that he had his reasons but it DID seem terribly unfair that Jou was killing himself over every phone-call and Seto couldn't even be bothered to say 'aishiteru'.

"Just a single encouraging word, a teeny confession of interest and he could have big-brother on a silver-plate," Serenity huffed. "But no, he can't even give up that much."

This was exactly why Serenity liked Honda so much. The uni-spiked boy had bumbled a lot and occasionally beaten around the bush so far that he was in another forest entirely but he had never let her go until she'd gotten a good look at his heart.

He hadn't blindsided her with unexpected gifts and flowers and stupid material things and then expected those trinkets to say everything for him as if somehow a hefty receipt could be exchanged for the months of hanging-out and hanging-on that Honda had put himself through.

"Easy girl, easy, Otogi isn't a problem anymore," Serenity caught herself.

It wasn't as though she disliked Otogi for his attempts. She even felt sorry she'd had to let him down like she had. But Serenity Jounouchi/Kawaii simply didn't do public-declarations of store-bought love. It was crude and it was tacky in her opinion.

"I don't know if trapping big brother and Kaiba like this will do any good but at least it won't end in a stupid swarm of pink heart-shaped balloons," Serenity couldn't help but jab at old memories one last time. "And this should put an end to big brother's sulking one way or another."

As she was winding down from her anger into more general acceptance a small twinge of regret for her lost romantic dinner with Honda flittered though her heart. She'd wanted Honda to have his moment to show-off, knowing that despite having won her affections Honda felt he needed to prove himself before he felt completely happy.

And Serenity so wanted Honda to be happy.

"If those idiots WASTE my precious dinner and don't get anything done then I WILL have to hurt them BOTH," Serenity growled to the empty apartment sounding chillingly like her brother at his very worst.

It was just her misfortune that no one was around to hear her otherwise Serenity was sure she'd have a lot more respect from her friends.

SCENECHANGE

Leonardo Bakura and Kamenwati Kul-Elna Bakura glowered at each other across the pristine white landscape of the Santa Station. Both men's eyes gleamed with suspicion and pride.

Then suddenly before either one could say a word a pair of pale hands armed with painfully sharp nails reached out and grabbed their ears.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" the two idiots whimpered while Ryou let out a hefty sigh.

"All I wanted," the pale boy began, "was a nice part-time job to earn a little extra money to cover the costs of the holiday that I was supposed to be enjoying with my father. Then amazingly something happened. Would you like to know what it is?"

"Son, this is highly inappropriate! As your father I demand that you-"

"Ry-baby will you let go of my ear? Damn it that hurts! GAH! I said knock it-"

"You see a troubled cloud descended over my dream holiday," Ryou continued over the two grown men's whimpers. "Troubles that I did not nor could not have foreseen swept in to ruin my Christmas. But you see I'm not going to let that happen. I WON'T let that happen!!"

Dropping Leonardo and Bakura's ears with sharp recoil Ryou turned to each of his loved ones in turn.

"YOU have not been around since mother and Amane died leaving me to raise myself so you aren't allowed to say anything against the partner I chose as you never helped me to choose another!" Ryou snarled at his dad.

"And YOU have promised me time and time again that you would behave yourself for my father and yet you continuously push the envelope! I know that you can't help some of your impulses, and I know that you are my lover, but you DAMN WELL COULD TRY HARDER TO NOT SCARE MY FATHER AWAY!!" Ryou then whipped around to scream at his other.

"NOW BOTH OF YOU, BEHAVE YOURSELVES OR SO HELP ME I WILL NEVER TALK TO EITHER ONE OF YOU AGAIN!!" the half-Brit concluded with a roar that echoed clear across the entire floor of the KC building.

Parents looked up from their progeny in shock while the children were stunned into absolute silence.

Embarrassingly enough it was Yugi's clapping that broke the silence.

"Well handled Ryou! Really excellent lung-power," the short duelist clapped approvingly while Ryou suddenly remembered how much he hated confrontation and turned red.

"A-Ah Y-Yugi I um…oh God that was…r-right in the middle of the store even…oh bollocks," Ryou stammered while Yugi just continued to smile.

"It's alright Ryou, we all have our moments. Might I suggest you take your other-half and your father and go home where you can REALLY hash out your problems without also bringing the sullied world of domestic disputes to the North Pole Kaiba tried so hard to recreate here?" Yugi said with elaborative flare.

"Yes, yes that sounds…oh! Oh no! But Yugi, you and Atem will be all-" Ryou snapped his head up from his hands in shock.

Yugi waved off the concerns even as he felt the headache he'd fought down in the elevator returning ever so slightly.

"Que sera-sera. You need the time more than I do. Besides there are some things I need to discuss with my own darker-half. Bonding-time and all. You go and mend fences okay?" Yugi insisted.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm being brushed off here?" Bakura mumbled darkly in the background. A single, surprisingly violent glare from Yugi was all it took for the ex-thief to just take the hint and head back to the changing room.

Leonardo muttered the excuse that he was getting the car and also exited leaving Ryou and Yugi as alone as they could get while still surrounded by the clamoring holiday crowds of Kaiba Corp.

"…I feel terrible about this Yugi. My debts to you just seem to be piling up more and more," Ryou huffed.

"Your own Christmas plans are braver than mine Ry-chan," Yugi winked, "you need more help because you've got more to worry about, that's all. Are you still planning on doing it Christmas Eve?"

A slow silly smile and an almost childish glow came to Ryou's face and the young light dreamily nodded his head.

"Yes…it's been something I've been dreaming about since…well since longer than I probably should have."

"Hey, your heart is your own Ryou. No one can decide what's best for it better than you," Yugi laughed.

"And what about your heart, Yugi?" Ryou shot back. "Do you know what will make you most happy?"

"Sadly I do and it is the despair of my spirit that I have to go through such extreme measures as these to get it," Yugi said putting on an exaggerated somber face.

Ryou rolled his eyes but smiled. Yugi was always good at making him feel better about things when the situation was at its gloomiest. More so than himself Yugi pulled off the role of Santa's Helper with aplomb. There was no one more filled with the Christmas spirit than the pharaoh's light.

"Alright then…I'd better hurry along myself then. I wouldn't want Bakura beating me to the car and starting another incident."

"Just be with your family Ryou. They'll get along find so long as your there too," Yugi shoved Ryou off in the direction of the locker-room.

Happily the boy went this time leaving Yugi to deal with the love-troubles of a much more intimate acquaintance.

"You can stop hiding behind the trees now Atem. The fight is over," Yugi sighed to the room at large.

A quiet moment passed and then a slightly shame-faced Atem appeared out of the shadows.

"How are you always able to sense me like that? Even Bakura can't find me when I'm in shadows," the ex-pharaoh pouted to his light.

"The light determines the location of the shadows, my dear other-half," Yugi said knowingly. "I could pick up your presence from a world away."

Atem started to smile then some thought –mostly likely that false idea that Yugi was with Anzu—clouded his garnet eyes and killed the grin before it even began.

"After shift today I have something very important I want to tell you," Yugi purposefully leaned deep into his other-half's personal space. "It's something I probably should have said the moment you returned."

"Y-Yugi?" Atem blushed, his body tense as his mind fought against what his body obviously wanted to do.

"For now though, we have kids to enchant with wintery dreams," Yugi couldn't help but make matters even worse by planting a kiss on his other's cheek. "So just put on a grin until later alright?"

The smile on Atem's face was bright enough to rival any Christmas star.

CHAPTEREND

**Masaka:** The preplanning for Seto and Jou's part in this story took SO LONG

**Yami Masaka:** Luckily while we were working on another Yu-Gi-Oh story called "Don't Feed Kuriboh After Midnight" which we will be beginning sometime next year we came upon the great idea to let the monsters do the work of cupid for this duo.

**Jason:** Kuriboh is definitely a good connection to all sorts of duel-monster planning too. Unlike other bigger monsters Kuriboh can be easily summoned to the 'real' world and converse with his masters then can be easily dismissed back into the 'monster' world where he can pass along the news to the rest of Yugi and the others deck-monsters

**Masaka:** What is a LITTLE bit harder to do is Leonardo and Bakura. I'm not sure if I've made the tensions between those two quite as …well tense as I want.

**Yami Masaka: **Eh, we can work more on that in the next chapter

**Masaka: *turns to Jason* **Ah yes speaking of…

**Jason: **Oh yes right ***clears throat and takes on his official announcer voice*** In the next chapter of Beyond the Definition: A Christmas Story…

Jounouchi runs into a mysterious woman who changes his views on the rich

Kaiba runs into a mysterious child who changes his views of the poor

Grandpa finally gets some speaking lines as he supports his grandson's master-plan

AND YUGI CONFESSES HIS FEELINGS TOWARDS ATEM!!

**All Three:** Stay tuned!


	5. Two Starfish Kissing

**Masaka: *praying fervently* **Let me get it done by Christmas, let me get it done! Let your strength fill me up and your determination guide my will so that I can actually keep up the discipline to finish this story by Christmas…oh and please don't let me forget my finals for the sake of this story like I always freak out will happen even though it never has…Amen

**Yami Masaka:** You are SUCH a worry wart

**Jason: *praying fervently*** -and don't let Yami Masaka wind up making Masaka cry again like during that dark section of writer's block that nearly stopped 'Saka from finishing "Heavenly Interventions" and let me get lots of cuddles too, Amen.

**Yami Masaka: *looks between the two of them and then blushes* **Oh ya great make me feel like the ungrateful one why don't you…sheesh

**CHAPTERSTART**

Solomon was pushing the last customer out the door when Atem and Yugi came home from work.

The old man watched with some interest while his grandson told his other-half to wait a minute while Yugi got changed and while Atem told his grandson to take his time while shuffling his feet impatiently.

"Oh ho, what sort of cozy conspiracy is this?" the old man snuck up behind the ex-pharaoh, nearly causing Atem to leap right out of his knee-high boots.

"GAAAH! Damn it jii-san, can't you just walk up to someone like a normal person!" Atem yelped in agitation.

"Ho ho ho," Grandpa just laughed merrily, "so is this some little shopping-trip you've planned or do I detect the signs of a more…romantic interaction forming?"

Atem grimaced and turned his head away towards the kitchen. "I'm not sure. Yugi simply said he wished to…talk."

"Ahhh yes the dreaded vagaries of 'a talk'. Yugi's grandmother used to scare the wits out of me by asking me somewhere special for 'a talk'. I was never sure if I was about to get in trouble or if she really did want to talk about something."

"Really?" Atem cocked a politely curious eyebrow.

"Yes, yes. This one time she took me out to the park during February…to see the ice-skaters and have a little talk she said…I got so nervous that I somehow stumbled onto the ice myself and ended up falling through the one darn thin-patch on the entire lake, spent the rest of the winter with hypothermia."

"…So…why did she take you out there?" Atem couldn't help but ask.

"To tell me that we were going to have a kid actually," Grandpa smiled nostalgically, "she thought the nice scenery of the park would put me at ease. Obviously that plan didn't turn out quite as well as she hoped."

"From a certain perspective," Atem grinned teasingly, "after all you didn't get shocked by the news. It was waiting for the news that did you in."

"…That's true," Grandpa chuckled wildly. The old man then shook his head and took on a slightly more melancholy look. "It was very lonely around here…after she was gone. Kaida did me a greater blessing than she even realized when she left Yugi in my care while she went off to pursue her career in America."

Atem smiled sympathetically at Solomon's words even while he felt so lingering confusion over the subject. The choice Yugi's mother had made to live a half a world away from her son still struck Atem as bizarre. Though he could remember little about his own family further back than the age of fourteen Atem couldn't remember a time when he didn't have at least three or four mother-figures immediately at hand.

"Kaida and my son were almost as bad as you two are, now that I think about it," Solomon came back to the present subject with a sneaky smile. "They were friends long before they ever admitted to actually being in love but oooh I could tell when they finally reached that stage where they just couldn't keep their hands off each other. No one had to tell ME they were in love. It was obvious in every look they shared, just like I see in you and Yugi."

"T-that's …that's not what is going on at all," Atem turned scarlet with embarrassment and confusion. "I mean we aren't…I don't even…know how Yugi feels about me."

"Hmm," Solomon thought, "well…perhaps not. But I believe that Yugi does have SOME feeling for you at least. You two have been through so much it shouldn't even be a question plaguing your mind."

Atem's face burned again and try as he might he couldn't stop. Solomon was so much like Atem's old advisor Shimun…even the way the old men's words forced themselves past all his defenses and made him rethink what he was most certain of was the same.

"Well! I can see I've troubled you enough for one night! I best be off!" Solomon thumped Atem heartily over the shoulder before heading towards the door.

"Where are you off to at this time of night?" Atem smirked.

"The airport! Our guests are supposed to arrive tonight if the blasted airplane hasn't flown through a rift in time or something else that seems ridiculously impossible until it actually happens," Solomon said over his shoulder as he shouldered on his winter-coat and pulled on his own less provocative footwear. "You and Yugi behave yourselves while I'm gone."

Atem blushed again but glared despite it. Unfortunately the old man didn't turn around for it to have any effect.

"Darn crazy old-" Atem cursed under his breath.

"Okay! I'm officially refreshed and ready," Yugi's voice interrupted Yami's tirade as the boy tromped back down the stairs. "Sorry if I took a while. I've just been so tired lately and- you know what? Never mind."

As if Solomon's words were somehow laced with a curse Atem found that he couldn't take his eyes off his other-half all the time the young man was walking down the stairs.

It was strange that something as simple as a cashmere sweater and a pair of charcoal linen pants could make Yugi look so much more grown-up at the same time keep him looking soft, approachable…and tantalizingly touchable.

"W-won't that b-be cold?" Yami coughed, yanking his eyes off Yugi's body to stare purposefully at the floor.

"We're not going far," Yugi walked right past the pharaoh to the coat-rack. "I heard grandpa leaving and figured that if we're going to be on our own for dinner we should probably avoid flirting with disaster and go out for food. Kazutaki's noodle store is just done the street and it'll be pretty much deserted because the old man refuses to decorate turning away a lot of the holiday crowds."

Atem felt his heart-rate decrease a little. Kazutaki's noodle store was an eatery that the Motos had been visiting for as long as Atem had known them. Apparently old man Kazutaki and Solomon were shogi-buddies and after most matches Kazutaki paid back his bets to Yugi's grandfather with a round of free beef ramen.

The first time Atem had joined the outing Kazutaki had mistaken him for a much older man and had given him sake to go along with the appetizer. Atem had spent the rest of the night with his head in Yugi's lap purring in drunken bliss.

"P-Perhaps we could just order something from here?" Atem chocked, hating the idea of another grinning old man telling him things that would only cause the ex-pharaoh to hurt worse after Yugi told him about his relationship with Anzu.

Perhaps some of Atem's anxiety seeped through their link because Yugi immediately sighed and took his coat off. "Sure that sounds fine to me."

**HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO**

Honda grumbled darkly under his breath as he waited for his blonde best-friend to show up to their usual meeting spot.

It was just his lot in life that the minute Jou's love-life intersected his own Honda started having to make these sorts of sacrifices.

"Work for a freaking year under a freaking boss who wouldn't know a fuel-gauge from his own ass and get nothing," the uni-spiked haired teen snarled under his breath, "it just figures. It really just freaking figures."

Much as Honda wanted Jou to get things settled with Seto, the brunette still felt as if his own rights were being somehow infringed. Sure he wasn't a duelist nor was in love with someone who was almost comically distant from his own economic and intellectual level but what of it? He worked hard too after all. The world couldn't be filled with only duelists after all. Nothing would get done.

"Bah, it's not important," Honda let it go with a cleansing deep breath. "If Serenity is more comfortable in street-level restaurants then we'll eat in street-level restaurants."

The only reason Honda had decided on Domino Tower as the place to show off his very seldom show-cased charming-side anyway was because his elder siblings had both pressured him into it.

Chikako, who Honda figured was already suffering terminal frustration because of her nasty-minded son Joji and her surprisingly saintly husband, had all but screamed that Honda's future with Serenity DEPENDED on a romantic dinner.

'Come on Honda, sure you got the girl, but you need to make sure she doesn't reconsider her decisions. You have to remind her that you can be charming too…that she didn't give away the best years of her life on a second-best choice…just because she was too impatient… so she doesn't wake up years later so much older and stuck with a husband who gave all his libido to his own son leaving his wife who would LOVE a little more attention to amuse herself with boxes of freaking romance novels that only increase her appetite for romance and--GAH! JOJI YOU BETTER NOT BE LOOKING IN MY CLOSET AGAIN!!' Honda could hear Chikako's mostly rhetorical advice drifting through his mind.

Kazuo's advice had been even worse. It had involved a point-by-point plan which started at Domino Tower and ended in a seedy love-hotel that only the truly desperate could call 'romantic'. Fortunately the exact words didn't also echo through Honda's head.

It would be the one mental conversation that Honda would actually have to put censor-bleeps over.

"It wouldn't have ended well anyway…not with THOSE two saying so," Honda thought wistfully.

"What wouldn't end well?" Jounouchi's voice spoke out nearly scaring Honda right off the curb.

"GEES MAN! RING A BELL OR SOMETHING WHY DON'T YOU!!" Honda cried foul. His best buddy only gave a self-satisfied smirk and plopped down beside him on the window-ledge of Tobikuma's bar.

In their less than legal days Jou and Honda had spent quite a bit of time at the bar –though they never did manage to sneak a drink past the surprisingly sharp old man behind the counter—and even now they felt that the old place was still somewhere special. It was a place with a bad enough reputation that Honda and Jou could still feel masculine and in-charge…without actually being so stupid as to put their lives on the line.

"You're gettin' rusty man, I walked right up to ya and you didn't even react," Jou chuckled. "So what did ya want to talk about?"

Momentarily Honda wondered if he could sneak in a little conversation about his crazy siblings and about the weird nature of romance, but he figured that might make Jou a little suspicious so he went right to the lie Serenity and Mokuba had all but scripted out for him.

"I just wanted someone to complain to about those stupid up-tight jerks working the reservation desk at Domino Towers," Honda sighed convincingly disheartened.

Jounouchi arched an eyebrow critically; "I thought you and Sere' had a date made for Christmas Eve there?"

"We DID but apparently some rich bastard bought the table right out from under us," Honda snarled with unfeigned viciousness. In his mind it had been Mokuba who had really ruined the date, so it wasn't as if he was really lying about the 'rich bastard' part.

"THEY WHAT?" Jou yelled in rage.

"Bought it out by paying the matradee three-thousand something dollars. I mean how the hell is a guy supposed to compete with THAT sort of cash-flow?" Honda continued the lie.

"T-That's- T-that's-Well that's awful! You gotta go and fight this Honda," Jou clenched his fists.

"Naah I'm just gonna take Serenity out to my brother's cabin. It's a shack really and it will take most of the day driving out there and back but at least we won't have to deal with snobs. Hopefully Kazuo will remember that he LENT it to me and not show up drunk like he did the last time I tried to take Serenity out there," Honda said, honestly giving Jou his alternative plan.

Honda had liked the idea of a private get-away in the woods a lot better than any fancy dinners but he hadn't dared attempt it before now because he knew that Jou would throw a fit. Honda's last attempt hadn't been ruined by just a drunken sibling. Fortunately this plan of Mokuba's gave Jou something ELSE to spaz out over while Honda and Serenity took the chance to escape.

"Well I'm not lettin' em get away with it that's for DAMN sure! Stupid rich guys think they can get away with anything…WELL NOT WITH JOUNOUCHI KATSUYA'S LITTLE SISTER THEY DON'T!!" Jou howled to the sky.

"You go get em Jou," Honda half-heartedly pumped his fist.

Obviously already charged up Jou puffed his chest out and stomped down the street towards the restaurant in that bow-legged stance that Honda knew meant Jou was more bluster than bite. Still the brunette pitied the poor sap that was going to be on the receiving end of all that anger.

Still, it was funny so Honda rolled his eyes at the sight as he pulled his cel-phone out of his pocket and dialed Mokuba's office –the kid was technically KC's vice-president—to inform the little creep that the dirty deed was underway.

"The dog has taken the scent," Honda chuckled to the preteen's answering machine. "Estimated time until he reaches the bone-yard will be-" he looked condescendingly at his watch "-really freaking soon so get your actors in place NOW! And from now on kid, I will take any further interruptions on my romantic plans as harassment so this had better work."

Honda then flipped his phone closed and took a deep breath. He looked over his shoulder at the bar and gave a sneaky grin. Since he had time to kill until it was safe for him to start his plans with Serenity he figured he might as well enjoy his age old game of 'annoying the bartender.'

**HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO**

Mokuba was running behind schedule because of a shipment of Smart Kuribohs®, Seto's latest play-time sensation and the creepiest thing since the Furbie®, had somehow gotten turned on. The whole box of robotic fur-balls had scattering around the loading dock getting under foot and generally scaring the bejeesus out of anyone who wasn't prepared for the sight of a bouncy clicking duel monster in real space.

Those things had been seemingly hell-bent on causing the employees as much trouble as possible and had only seemed to settle down when Mokuba came running to fix the problem.

"If I didn't know any better I'd think someone was messing with me," Mokuba scowled almost as darkly as his brother was wont to as he marched into his office.

His secretary, Higa Nobuko, --the little sister of Seto's own secretary Higa Akuro whom Mokuba had hired mostly just to be ironic—was standing by his desk with the expression he least wanted to see on her face.

"Whatever it is, tell me it doesn't involve fuzzy robots," Mokuba pleaded the brunette.

Nobuko shook her head and held out a clipboard. Mokuba walked over and looked over the in-voice with great despair.

"My actors…they BOTH quit at the SAME TIME? This is horrible! I worked so hard to steal those two away from their agents for this private project!" Mokuba wailed as he flopped into his chair.

The smaller Kaiba then steepled his fingers under his chin and groaned. "You have permission to call the understudies now Higa."

His secretary just shook her head again and flipped the page on the clipboard over showing another in-voice underneath. Mokuba looked it over and went pale.

"T-THEY'RE ALL UNAVAILABLE!! WHAT IS THIS??"

"T-They said they were um…well t-that's just the thing the reports were well…they all sounded scared," Nobuko tried to explain. "I-I really tried to get them to come back, I-I offered twice the payment, and permission to print the story i-if they were successful in getting Kaiba-sama and Jouonouchi-san together only…o-only no one would accept."

"This is terrible! NOW I'VE KISSED UP TO A MAN I HATE AND HAD TO CALL IN A FAVOR FROM THAT SAME BASTARD FOR NOTHING!!" Mokuba wailed. It was enough to make a protégé's brother cry.

"I'll give you one weirder," a more controlled version of Nobuko's voice suddenly called from the doorway.

"Akuro-san?" Mokuba looked over to the older Higa sibling.

"W-what's going on nee-sama?" Nobuko asked.

"Just about the same time my little sister called me in hysterics," Higa said, marching purposefully into the room and pulling something small out of her well-pressed pin-strip skirt-suit pocket, "I got this weird little card saying that everything would be okay. If this is a gag you are pulling to try to mess with my sister again I'm telling you right now that you better be prepared to explain all that you've been doing to Kaiba-sama because I don't have time for these childish pranks with so much REAL work to do, not to mention the fact that your brother's migraine medication is close to running out and he's such a 'joy' to work with when he's in pain and refuses to leave despite it."

Mokuba took a small handkerchief from the now bristling thirty-year-old and gently unwrapped it. Within the surprisingly girly pink lace sat a rectangular card about the size of a duel-monster's card. It was slightly burnt as if someone had tried to pick it up with burning chopsticks --or at least melting acrylic nails—yet fortunately the almost archaic styled script was still glaringly legible.

"Dear minor Kaiba,

The difficulties before you, in regard to the fated union of the dragon-sires, have been referred to us by a mutual friend. We apologize for the deception but it was required for you to let our expertise take over. We are far more eager to see this union consummated by words or actions than even you and by our vow we will not fail. Everything will be as it should be.

With dearest regards to his shadow-highnesses youngest lieutenant-"

And in place of a signature Mokuba looked down on what looked like a mathematical infinity sign drawn in red and blue.

"Please tell me that YOU know what it means because with all the other things I have to finish by the twenty-fourth I don't have time to also be looking for some stalker," Higa groaned.

Mokuba turned the card over in his hands a few times with a near blank expression on his face. Then something must have clicked because a giant grin came across the preteen's face.

"Well I'll be damned…someone was messing with me," Mokuba chuckled.

"Watch your language," both secretaries said passingly.

"You both can get back to work now," Mokuba said, taking off his locket and slipping this card behind his photo of Seto as he now knew this card to be a very precious item indeed. "A few out-of-towners have come to help with Operation Mistletoe that's all."

Nobuko blushed while Akuro just rolled her eyes and stomped back towards the door.

"Sometimes I don't know why I even work here," the older Higa said as she charged out the door. "It's like you summon problems out of the very air just to annoy me."

"Not quite out of the air, Akuro-san...not quite the air," Mokuba just laughed enigmatically.

**HO-HO-HO-HO**

**(A/N: **I am so tempted to move onto the drama that is ringshipping and puppyshipping but I know that you fan-girls have been patiently waiting for me to set things right on the puzzle front and since I know it won't distract from how happy the final will be, only make Christmas-lessons seem less romance-based and more 21st century pseudo-religion based I'll go with the starfish heads**)**

Atem hug up the phone with Pizza Planet and returned to the couch where Yugi was sitting. Now that they weren't in a hurry to be anywhere or do anything Atem could see how fatigued his light really was.

"I think I should have been a little more like Bakura in Murakami's treatment," Atem growled softly as he sat down next to his other-half.

"W…what are you talking about?" Yugi asked sleepily.

"You are exhausted little one," Atem pointed out, gently taking Yugi's hands in his and running his thumbs soothingly over the backs of the younger's wrists. "You've been letting your light-ka burn too brightly in dealing with this part-time job. I should have stepped in much sooner."

Disappointingly Yugi pulled his hands from Atem's and sat upright with a laugh. "Mou hitori no boku, if Murakami was the only thing I was dealing with then I'd consider myself blessed. I haven't told you this directly but I'm helping Ryou with his gift and certain…problems keeping arising that are just taking their toll. Not to mention the other ones."

"Other ones what?" Atem blinked. Yugi just laughed and teasingly poked Atem in the forehead.

"You'll never find out. Not until its time. I worked really hard on my own mental defenses mou hitori no boku. They are tough enough that you are not getting past."

Atem huffed and leaned heavily back against the couch. He knew from sad experience that when Yugi was decided on something, very little could change the boy's mind. Considering his own formidable stubborn streak, Atem had to wonder if he and his other ever got into a disagreement if they'd ever be able to break it.

"Without the details this is just a guess of course but I'd suppose these 'other ones' are what are causing you to burn too brightly," Atem huffed.

Yugi just laughed again and shook his head. "You are not one to talk about using up too much spiritual energy Atem. You and Bakura are the WORST example of spiritual control that Ryou and I could ever have, Murakami is barely on the list of current victims."

Atem tried to play innocent but Yugi really did know him too well. Besides it was kind of hard not to notice when notoriously cocky members of your school suddenly and very publically went insane.

"I only ever use my powers in self-defense, besides which the rules are different for shadow users and light users," Atem snarled.

Yugi cocked his head curiously to one side but luckily before he had a chance to ask the doorbell rang giving Atem amble excuse to leave.

Paying the delivery-boy extra for coming quickly despite the snowstorm warning that had been lingering over the city for the past three days, Atem brought the food into the kitchen where Yugi had already set up the paper-plates and bottles of soda.

"Sometimes I have to question your tastebuds, hikari. A pineapple just does not belong on a pizza," Atem hoped to hold off this conversation a little longer as he passed the Hawaiian lovers pie to his other-half.

"Blame Jou for the craving, before him all I ever ate was pepperoni and black-olive," Yugi said as he took the small box and set it down before his place-setting on the table. Before Atem had a chance to do likewise the small hikari hit him with the look. That same look that made it impossible for Atem to not answer any question no matter how embarrassing the potential answer.

"Don't ask me to explain myself Yugi. You already know it. Bakura and I made sure you and Ryou knew everything about your own magics when we realized our resurrection meant that the faulty seal my father had put over the Shadow Realm was completely shattered," Atem said hoarsely.

Just the memory of teaching Yugi to summon his monsters, remembering the sensation of the boy's ka brushing across his own as it tried to reach out towards the other-realm, made Atem feel faint. Having a connection to the boy's mind had been one thing but after that first summoning Atem had been hooked by Yugi's ka as well.

"…You don't remember do you?" Yugi smiled weakly, making Atem look up from his meal.

"What do you-"

"I'll take that as I yes," Yugi smiled even wider. The boy then dropped into his seat and pulled a slice out of the box. "Come and eat and then we'll talk, okay? It's hard to be serious when your head feels like it's about to float right off your neck from hunger."

Though he was grateful for the reprieve, Atem felt that he had more respect for Solomon's fears of intimate conversations. All these stops and starts were making even his shadow-forged cool begin to break.

In silence the two boys ate their fill of pizza and drank their fill of soda. After about the fourth slice Yugi sighed in happiness and pushed the box away. Without further thought Atem pushed away his own box.

"What is it you think I forgot, hikari?" Atem asked.

"Bakura was in charge of the lesson about the fundamental differences in light and dark magic," Yugi said taking a final sip of his cherry-cola before pushing that aside as well. "You and Bakura had divided the lessons and the explanation of power-division was his."

Bakura and Atem had indeed decided to divide the lessons because both spirits had felt that if they had to be exposed to their other's light-ka on a near daily basis for the months it would take to train their others they would either go insane or end up doing something very naughty and possible unwelcome to their charges.

"Bakura had the best intentions to start," Yugi said with a sort of wistful smile on his face. Annoyingly the light got up and wandered into the living room, making Atem follow as surely as if he were on a leash.

"What did Bakura tell you about the difference between dark-ka and light-ka?" Atem asked as Yugi arranged himself comfortably on the couch once more.

"He started to say something about light-ka being selfless and dark-ka being selfish and had started to get us training to feel how Ryou and I's ka disperses differently when he just seemed to lose control of himself and he leapt on Ryou," Yugi said idly. "I was a bit worried at first but once I saw that Ryou was well…more than happy with the attention…I excused myself from the lesson and came home. The next day when we all came together for our usual coffee they told the group they were a couple."

Atem wasn't sure how to process this information except to snort: "Some greatly willed avenger he turns out to be; can't even resist exposure to his other's light without breaking into a lust-filled mess."

"Hmm, to be honest I was a little jealous," Yugi said.

"Jealous? Of what?" Atem scoffed.

"Of the whole situation I guess. Maybe of Bakura's weak-will. I just spent weeks afterwards imagining what it would have been like if you'd been in charge of the lesson…and that it had been me who'd gotten tackle into the floorboards like that," Yugi finished with a blush, his eyes fixated on the ground.

Atem stared at his other-half for what could have been ages, his intelligent brain slow for once to pick up what was lying right before him. Atem tried to make a sound but only a sad attempt of a croak managed to break free.

"Anzu and I aren't a couple either," Yugi had to add. "Never were and by the shadows we never will be. I love her, I guess, but it's not what I feel for you…have always felt for you."

This was what unfroze Atem and send him stumbling into Yugi, all but falling into a desperate, sloppy and sticky kiss. Yugi jolted a bit at the ex-pharaoh's fervor but couldn't have even begun to protest before Atem tilted the boy onto his back.

**(A/N:** What is it with me and couch make-outs?**)**

Eventually air became a necessity and Atem broke from the kiss just long enough to get a lungful of air before he was right back in again, nibbling Yugi's neck like it was the world's finest gingerbread cookie.

"A-AH-temu, y-y-OH-ou c-can't-" Yugi tired to protest. Atem wasn't in any hurry to listen however. As far as he was concerned everything that was Yugi was now his. The ex-pharaohs inhibitions were gone, baby, gone. Those delicate round ears were his to suckle, that sweet little dip of Yugi's collarbone was Atem's to lick, the boy's still momentarily shirt-covered nipples were his to pinch and-

"I-I really think you s-should *YAWN*-" Yugi's next attempt to protest was broken with one of the most coal-cooling sounds that a lover could make.

"Yugi? Oh! That's right, you SAID you were tired! I'm so stupid, it's just you said- and I really wanted to—and you didn't mind—but of course that doesn't mean—" Atem awkwardly stumbled, pulling Yugi back upright and tugging the boy right up against his chest.

Yugi laughed and nuzzled against the ex-pharaoh's shirt: "Okay well that was a bit too teasing for me even if I do feel tired but…thank you for stopping. That would have been the most horrifying thing I could ever dream up, to finally get the chance to touch you all over and then have my stupid body put on the breaks right in the middle of it all."

"I-I'm sorry," Atem blushed, "I just …I had just about convinced myself that I could never have you and I sort of …well I did lose my mind there for a second. Next time I'll be more courteous."

"Next time…I like the sound of that," Yugi said in a tone that was just about as dazedly happy as Atem felt himself.

Knowing that if he followed this train of conversation it would just lead right back down into the cushions, Atem tried another course.

"So…what IS it that has been draining you so, aibou? I know you said you that you have sealed that information away but if it is going to come between us…coming… between…Well if it is a problem for you then I feel I have some right to know," Atem coughed awkwardly. At least the damn blush hadn't risen again.

Yugi curled into Atem's lap in a way that nearly did away with all his will-power anyway then sighed both wistful and sad at the same time.

"Well I suppose it's safe to say that I have been doing a lot of Christmas prep and…other than that …I suppose the most exhausting thing I've been dealing wit his helping Otogi test his new product.

Suddenly a new voice intruded saying "Beta-testing hmm…sounds fun, mind if I take the job off your shoulders?"

Only Yugi's weight in his lap kept Atem seated as he whirled around in a panic to see Mai Valentine leaning sumptuously against the arch dividing the living-room from the kitchen where the back-door was located.

"H-How long have you been standing there?" Atem chocked over a ball of nerves now stuck firmly in his throat.

"Woo-hoo long enough," Mai said, teasingly fanning herself with the fleece-lined lapels of her coat.

Atem was too horrified to move so Yugi escaped his grasp much easier than if Mai hadn't suddenly appeared to play the part of the world's sexiest metaphorical bucket-of-ice-water.

"Mai it's well…w-what are you doing here?" Yugi asked as he self-consciously tugged his shirt back down from where it had bunched up right beneath his sternum.

"Didn't mean to interrupt you kids," Mai winked. "I just happened to catch an earlier flight than the rest of the crew and decided to come over wait out the time difference here. I can just wander the town a little if you'd like."

Yugi's blush faded as something of a calculating spark lit in his eyes. "Oh that's okay Mai…well it is if you meant what you said about taking over beta-testing."

Mai looked curiously over Atem, who just shrugged helplessly in reply, then turned her attention back onto the shorter duelist.

"I certainly wouldn't mind the job-opportunity besides which my gaming-skills could use a bit of a refresher. I'd need you to put in a good word to the dice-man though. Not to sell myself short but I'm not sure he'd react kindly to losing his king…for a simple queen of the harpies."

"Oh Otogi will be fine with it. I've been too busy for him anyway and I can tell all the stops and starts are starting to annoy him," Yugi laughed.

"Stops and starts huh," Atem pouted from the couch. Mai laughed wickedly at the expression but Yugi just blushed and looked away.

"I'll take you there before it gets too dark. He has a spare room too if you want to avoid the hotel crunch with the others," Yugi offered after a quick look at his watch.

"Between sharing a room with two saccharine-sweet preteens, their parents, and an older than old history professor and shacking up with an old friend, I'll definitely take the old friend," Mai nodded.

"…Rebecca is happy then?" Yugi tried not to let his tenderness show. Neither Atem nor Mai were fooled.

"She's delirious. It was a good thing you encouraged this pair kiddo," Mai winked. Yugi smiled gratefully then hurried off to put on his coat.

A long, terribly awkward moment passed as Mai and Atem were left alone.

"…Blue-balls?" Mai couldn't help herself.

"Y-Y-YOU—I CAN STILL SELL THOSE SUMMER BREAK PHOTOS OF YOU TO THE TABLOIDS I HOPE YOU KNOW!" Atem screamed in frustration.

"Not like they'll show anything the boys haven't already dreamed up," Mai said tugging the corset top underneath her coat up to make her breast bounce playfully.

Yugi returned to see Atem buried into the sofa's arm muttering very vehement Egyptian curses while Mai just grinned like the cat that ate the canary.

"Uh…do I want to know how this all happened in the five seconds I wasn't here?" Yugi asked.

"Probably not," Mai said honestly. Yugi shook his head with mock despair then came to Atem's side.

"Just hang on for a little while, mou hitori no boku. Remember my room is sound-proofed if nothing else," Yugi said in a hurried rush before planting a small kiss on his other's cheek then hustling back to Mai's side.

"Awwh that's so cute, what did you say to make our pharaoh here turn into a tomato?" Mai cooed.

Yugi just smiled enigmatically and led the female duelist out into the evening.

**HO-HO-HO-HO**

**Masaka: *shaking from blood-sugar crash* **M-Mu-Must g-go oooooon

**Yami Masaka: *looking over Christmas list and checking the sky for rain* **Aibou, light of my life, if you write anymore your wrist will break off, you'll pass out AND you won't have time to either eat or shop before you have to get on the bus back home. It's 2:43 and you haven't eaten anything since 7:06

**Jason:** Beeeeesides, you ended with puzzleshipping. To add anything else now would detract from the sweetness.

**Yami Masaka:** For once the dog is right. Just finish this up, post and be done with it!

**Masaka:** P-Proof…r-reading…still

**Jason and Yami Masaka:** MAKE IT QUICK THEN LEAVE ALREADY!!


	6. Three Monsters Sneaking

**Masaka: **What is it with me and filling out all my stories with little extra characters! I just kept tacking on stuff about the secretaries and now I'm starting this chapter out with some random background dude!

**Yami Masaka**: The way we perceive the world is shaped by those around us, poppet. Now let's get cracking on this story because after this you have personalized Hallmark humor worthy Christmas cards to churn out for everyone, including a special one for your dad who didn't get a real present from you

**Masaka: *blushing because she's so very poor but feels like she shouldn't be using that as a real excuse* **He and Aaron are going to have to get presents from borrowed money.

**CHAPTERSTART**

Bidō Renard had been in charge of the Domino Tower's reservation desk for almost as long as he'd known how to use a computer. His father, the French gourmet Garon Renard, had thought it would be a good way of training Bidō in the family business without also risking his son somehow coming across his mother's family and getting 'brainwashed' by the very traditional Japanese restaurateurs.

Bidō didn't really care for that whole issue one way or another but he figured it was better to put up with his father's grudge than go on scrapping knees to a bunch of relatives that he didn't know. Besides which the chances to make money and connections at the reservation desk were much higher…except…

Except Bidō was beginning to regret his latest deal with Mokuba Kaiba as he caught sight of the enraged blonde called Jounouchi Katsuya storming up from the elevators towards his little counter.

Being the metaphorical 'gate-keeper' to Domino's most high-classed eatery Bidō was used to getting yelled at by the peons. It was annoying and it occasionally got him covered in spit but such was otherwise survivable. This young man walking up however…didn't look like the type of person whom you survived by simply nodding vacantly and smiling. This young man looked more like the type to rip a nodding head right off its connected shoulders if he heard something that he didn't like. Bidō HATED that type.

"Just say what you were instructed to say," the actor Mokuba-sama had sent to arrange this whole odd exchange whispered to him before turning to leave.

Sweating more profusely than he had in years Bidō managed a weak nod and he clenched his knees against the very unmanly tremble that was threatening to spill down his spine.

"Good afternoon sir and welcome to the Domino To-" Bidō tried to smile professionally.

The blonde slapped his hands down on Bidō's counter so hard that the sound actually echoed through the marble lobby causing the chandelier to quake.

"Reservation! Honda! Cancelled! NOT GONNA HAPPEN!" Jounouchi-san snarled.

**(A/N:** Awwwh isn't that so polite? Little bus-boy is using honorifics on Jou since he wasn't officially introduced**) **

The urge to tremble built up higher within Bidō's knee but once again the man resisted the urge.

"The…Honda r-reservation?" Bidō coughed nervously, "I-I'm so sorry sir but-"

"You SOLD the table right UNDER my BEST-FRIEND's reservation!" Jounouchi-san snarled so darkly that Bidō wouldn't have surprised to see fangs glistening among the blonde's brilliant white teeth.

"Please sir, do not throw your emotions at me. I-It's just management policy to r-reverse the order of reservation between a-any party willing t-to pay triple the fee…a-and the party whose reservation was a-already paid. I-I informed Honda-san that he c-could keep the table if he were willing to match-"

"ARE YOU RUNNIN' A FREAKIN' RESTAURANT OR A SYNDICATE? WHO THE HELL MAKES A PERSON PAY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS BEFORE LETTIN' THEIR COSTUMERS EVEN SIT AT THE FREAKIN' TABLE!!" the blonde screamed.

"O-Oh God don't hurt me! T-The guy who out-bid the table is o-over there by the door! You can settle this with THEM! Just don't hurt me!" Bidō's knees finally collapsed, sending the man into a huddle beneath the nice solid mass of the countertop.

Mercifully, miraculously, the savage young man turned his attention from Bidō towards the actor who was entering the elevator. As just when Bidō's life was beginning to flash before his eyes in a sad display of aimlessness and familial neglect Jounouchi-san turned and left.

Panting heavily Bidō peeked over the edge of the counter still half expecting the young blonde to come running back with his fists flying, leading a band of all of his father's other displaced and dissatisfied costumers charging at him.

However such was not Bidō Renard's fate. The lobby was empty.

"T-THAT'S IT! SCREW THESE FIVE-STAR DEATH-TRAPS!" Bidō ripped his bowtie from his shirt as he leapfrogged over the desk, "I'm not dealing with this type of-of…STUPIDITY any longer! IF SOMEONE IF GONNA SCREAM AT ME IT'S GONNA A BE FOR A DAMN BETTER REASON THAN WHETHER OR NOT THEIR TABLE IS BY THE RIGHT FREAKIN' WINDOW!!"

Though Yugi would never know it, that Christmas, because of him, the Ikazuka family would finally recover their long lost heir and would finally recover from the cooking-style rift that had been created with Garon Renard had first tried to introduce new western flavors to the menu.

**HO-HO-HO**

Down on the street Jou was close to losing his cool in a violent way as he chased after the creep who'd had the nerve to ruin his only little sister precious Christmas Eve plans. His own unattainable and fairly dreamy plans had obviously gone belly-up what with Kaiba laughing his pretty head off at the very suggestion of a shared meal so Jou would be DAMNED if he'd let all the members of his family spending the blissful eve clustered before the flickering television watching a poorly dubbed version of _It's a Wonderful Life_ for the nine-hundredth time since the beginning of December when they didn't have to.

He was so in a rage that he didn't even stop to think that Serenity was at no risk at all of spending her days couch-surfing thanks to Honda's flexible planning skills.

Only a few feet ahead of him the thick coal-black trench-coat of his target flapping teasingly in the chill as its owner tried in vain to escape his just desserts.

"AWWWWH NO YA DON'T YOU CHRISTMAS-KILLIN', EGOCENTRIC BA-" Jou's scream tampered off as the coat pulled away and its owner was revealed, " ba…babe."

Instead of some smirking, balding, sneering salaryman, such as Jounouchi had expected, the dark material pulled away to reveal a beautiful yet gently crying woman with the most incredible blue-eyes that Jou had come across since Seto Kaiba's.

"Ah…shit I didn't realize ya was …I-I mean I wouldn't a…if I'd know…awwh come on lady please don't cry," Jou whimpered as the woman tugged her coat out of the blonde now limp grasp and sought to fix the lapels.

"I…I am not crying," the woman said haughtily even as the liner around her eyes began to leave streaks down her face.

Jou couldn't help but find it somehow adorable that the woman wouldn't give in and had to smile; "Well if those ain't tears then I gotta admit you must be the saddest person I've ever heard of ta suffer from dead-winter allergies."

The woman paused in her rearranging long enough to give Jounouchi a startled look and then slowly that shock melted into a watery laugh and a smile.

"Alright maybe I'm crying…just a little," the woman laughed as she pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and swipe at the smudges beneath her eyes.

"Uh ya…just a little," Jou scratched the back of his head helplessly. The strange older woman laughed again, causing fat inky droplets to roll even further down her cheeks.

"Oh …damn it all I'm making such a mess," she sobbed helplessly.

"Crap…err uh listen lady, I-I didn't mean ta sound…ya know…deranged or whatever but um…well ya see the thing is," Jou whipped his head helplessly back and forth and let out a frustrated bellow, "GAAAH!! Damn it why the hell do I go ta pieces in front of a crying girl? Listen ya bought out my little sister reservation at that fancy-smancy restaurant back there and I ain't leavin' ya be until ya at least give me a reason!!"

Much to his displeasure instead of setting the woman at ease Jou's words only cause the strange woman to tear up more and let out a few little sobbing cries into her now very blotched handkerchief.

"Awwwwwh man! Noooo! Don't cry MORE! Less! Cry less! Come on damn it people will think I'm harrassin' ya or somethin'!" Jou hung his head in defeat.

"I-I have a-already t-told you…t-that I am n-not crying," the woman sniffed back her cries and tried to put on a brave face.

Jou growled and raked his hands through his hair so feverously that his hair frizzed up like a well snuggled mongrel.

"Okay! Okay! Let's take it back a step here," Jou let out a huff. "There is a small café just one little street-length away from here. And it's not the one I usually visit, it's more…ya know…YOU class. I'm gonna ask ya to just come with me there so we can have a little talk. Ya can go and …ya know…not cry for a bit in the powder-room or whatever and rearrange your makeup and…and we can talk…okay?"

Thankfully for Jou's blood-pressure the woman immediately agreed and side by side the two walked off to the _Jade Lotus: Gourmet Bistro_.

**HO-HO-HO**

At around the same time or later than when Jou was sitting down to coffee, Yugi was having his own little girl-trouble as he tried to convince Otogi Ryuji to take Mai Valentine on as his beta-tester.

"-after all the trouble you put me through with that stupid request for that…that THING you were going to DRAG ME INTO despite my own wishes, you go and try to dump some has-been dueling psycho on me!" Otogi was finally rattling down from a little rant that had started almost the moment Yugi set foot in the Dark Clown Game Shop.

Yugi sighed heavily and turned to apologize to Mai for Otogi's behavior when he saw a very familiar and slightly chilling look in the female duelist's lavender eyes.

It was that same look she'd had when she'd tormented Jou through Kaiba's tournament and the same look she'd had when she'd attempted to make the blonde forget all about pretty blue-eyed brunette and swing for side of the fence again after all the tournaments were finished.

It was that look that meant things were about to get very hot around the ole Dark Clown Game Shop.

"You know…Ryuji," Mai started softly.

"I'd prefer it if you called me Otogi."

"You know Ryuji," Mai repeated tauntingly, "if I didn't know your reputation better I'd think you were afraid of little ole' me?"

This reply sent a strange sort of tremor through Otogi, as if he'd been caught up in the wave of heated energy that Mai was sending out like it was an actual current in the ocean.

"How do you figure that I am afraid of you?" Otogi said, crossing his arms over his chest and widening his stance, mirroring Mai's own body-language perfectly.

Mai tilted her head downward slightly so that she was looking up at Otogi through her thick lashes. She also pouted out her lips just slightly so that it was impossible to not notice their glistening plump shape.

"You seem so adamant to not be struck with me …for all those long after-hours it will take to test your little game…to see me push the limits of what you know. It's as if you don't think you can handle me."

A smirk, faint and timid as it was, perked up at the corner of Otogi's lips making the hair on Yugi's neck bristle and his cheeks turn pink. He knew veeeery well what that sort of smirk on the lips of dice-master Otogi Ryuji meant. And it was not a show meant to be put on in front of others.

"My dear Mai, I think you've overestimated your appeal. There is no woman on this earth that Otogi Ryuji can't handle."

"Oh no?" Mai cooed softly, "Then why don't you take me…on?"

The pause between the words was so brief that Yugi almost thought he imagined it and was so blatantly sexual that even Mai's cheeks seemed to turn a little rosy.

"Yugi!" Otogi snapped authoritatively, his testosterone obviously spiking.

"Y-Yes?" Yugi yelped.

"You can leave Miss Valentine to me. I've changed my mind about the beta-testing," Otogi smirked even more brilliantly.

"S-Sure thing just um…well I'll um…see ya on the 25th…I guess," Yugi mumbled as he backed away cautiously towards the door and made a break for it.

Once safe at the bottom of his steps Yugi felt free to not only blush as deeply as he'd wanted to the moment Mai had started her flirtatious little challenge but also to laugh until tears started to roll down his cheeks.

"O-O-Oh my god! Kuriboh, my dear, darling little monster I am going to have to really give you something special for this! You are by far the cleverest little creature to have ever been dreamed up," Yugi choked out as he stumbled away towards home.

**HO-HO-HO-HO**

As he sat at the very softly upholstered chair in the booth of the very well cared for café waiting for his mysterious guest to come back from the ladies' room Jou had to take a minute to do a little self-assessment and decide that he was just too female-friendly for his good.

He'd always had a weakness for a dame who painted on a brave face against the world despite being a mess within. Something about the contrast between their alluring vulnerability and their steely ambitions just made Jou freeze in awe.

Perhaps it had something to do with Mai, or his mother –who for all intents and purposes had flowered under her status as a single divorcee parents contrary to the way Jou's old man had withered--, or maybe it had nothing to do with any of them at all but for whatever reason Jou just couldn't resist the older ladies in far too many ways to be healthy. And the blonde was almost certain that today was going to be the day that that weakness got him in serious trouble.

"Thank you for letting me get my dignity back Mister…" the woman said questioningly as she came walking at a brisk professional clip towards the table.

"Uh the name is Jou, I-I mean, I'm Jounouchi. Jounouchi Katsuya," Jou introduced himself.

"It is a pleasure, Katsuya," the woman nodded. "My name is Kira Emichō, vice-president to Seiryu Enterprises."

Having no idea what the heck that business was except that its name reminded him of a girly comic his sister had once gotten him hooked on Jounouchi only nodded. He was even more shocked that this woman he barely knew was calling him by his given name. It wasn't …uncomfortable to be called by it only no one ever did.

"I suppose I better tell you why I took your sister's reservation hadn't I?" the woman sighed, brushing a lock of platinum hair out of her eyes. Perhaps it was just the combination of her silver hair and her pale skin but Jou thought the woman looked very cold.

"I did ask ya for an answer," Jou said plainly.

The woman's well manicured nails gripped the handle of her Italian leather purse so tightly that Jou could have sworn he heard the cow crying.

"Y-you see I am…well I have been divorced …a long time and my son…" Kira shook her neck-length hair regally back out of her face and took a sip of the water the waiter had brought out. "My son has been living in America with his father. Because of my work I haven't been able to spend the time with him that I would have otherwise liked and this has allowed my ex to…to fill my son's head with ridiculous notions about my love for him and…. Please, I beg of you Katsuya, do not ask me to return this reservation. Domino Towers is just the type of fantastical setting I need to show my son just how much I can give him…that I want to give him…that his father would deny him from with his lies!"

The heated anger rolling beneath the woman's words made Jou rethink his ideas about the woman being cold but also made his own blood grow hot with all too familiar rage.

"My god lady how fuckin' stupid can ya get?" Jou snorted, feeling slightly satisfied that the woman dropped her glass out of shock.

"You are a cruel man to deprive a woman the chance to-"

"I didn't say nothing about yer precious dinner date," Jou smirked darkly.

Kira cocked a confused eyebrow at him while continuing to dab at the water she'd spilled on herself and the tablecloth.

"W-what are you-"

"What I AM saying is that only a stupid, egocentric, hollow-shell of a woman could think that money could buy a person's affections. Yer money ain't worth crap from a kid who only wanted a mother to spend Christmas morning with…to laugh with…to talk to girls about. There ain't enough money in the world to make up for that. Yer money can't show love, only yer love can show love."

Kira stared deeply at Jou once again, her dark blues seeming to penetrate his skin and look deeper down into his soul. It strangely reminded Jou of the times that he'd been stared down by duel monsters. It was as if should he show any weakness or uncertainty in his beliefs the woman would eat him up and spit out the bones.

"P-Perhaps…" Kira finally said, moving her burning stare from Jou to the tablecloth, "perhaps there is some validity to that. I have not been around children…or anyone who makes less than a six-figure salary and has less than a master's degree for so long that …perhaps I have just gotten trapped into this type of thinking that has less to do with showing love and more to do with showing my determination."

Jou grimaced in pain as the eloquence of this woman's language started to form a pretty little overly-educated knot in his frontal lobe.

"Ya wanna run that by me again…with a little more explanation as ta what the hell love and determination are doin' in that sentence together?"

Kira flushed but didn't answer until the waiter came by with a new tablecloth and their cups of coffee.

"It is simply a matter of…well you see it is …in the corporate world it is suicide to expose your true feelings. You can't let someone see where you are weak or if you find something objectionable. You have to be accommodating and dazzling…but you can't be truly affectionate. There are far too many ways that you can be…destroyed…when you share your weaknesses. Even if it hurts, if you don't let your companion know how much his words have hurt you, you can still hold back enough strength to make another attempt at success should your first attempt fail…but if you put it all on the line at the very start…"

Jou startled the woman again by letting out a barkish laugh.

"Shit lady you are talking to the wrooong person if ya want ta argue the benefits of conservativeness."

"Well perhaps for YOU this type of cautious seems ridiculous if you have the sort of lifestyle where big attempts equals big respect not matter how foolish the outcome, as I suspect holds true for the man called the Dumb Luck Duelist," Kira sneered so hotly that Jou had to laugh.

"I won't lie ta ya and say that I haven't impressed people just as much with my stunts as I have with actually pullin' off my goals but here is something ya really ought to know. All my life I've watched people fallin' apart because they let somethin' as stupid as their propriety get in the way of their love. My ol' man kept working double-shifts at his job because he 'wanted ta make a good impression with the boss' and he only ever came home tired and cranky. My mom got sick a' that and left with my little sister leaving me and my old man in a real bind. Then there is my best friend, he let his precious soul-mate walk away and he nearly lost him forever because my bud thought 'it was only fair to let his other have the choice to go'. I'm not sayin' I want ta see people paradin' up and down the streets with big freaking neon-glow marker drawn poster-boards of sappy sweet declarations of love and I would probably be more embarrassed than impressed if I saw a couple hanging all over in each other, all up humping like territorial dogs in the middle of a diner. That stupid stuff doesn't impress me but…but I guess I just ain't impressed with anything less than the hard and painful exposure of the human soul. I can handle anything…so long as the one I love gives me that…and means it."

Jou was not entirely sure why he'd gone off like that. Anzu was the one to make the speeches, or Yugi if you got him pumped up with enough adrenaline. Jou was the one standing in the background snickering over each any ever y fluffy supposedly 'girly' word right alongside Honda.

But…but…well damn it look at what Honda had done for Serenity! And this Kira Emichō just reminded him of Seto so much while thankfully not being him. It was like Jou NEEDED to set this woman right.

However as righteous as Jou had felt giving his speech he quickly ran out of fuel for it and sat back in his seat with a huff of air leaving Kira staring down at her coffee in confliction.

"E-eh an-and anyway I should probably get goin' now. Uh, it was nice to…meet ya and well good luck with your holiday plans," Jou coughed awkwardly as he rose from his chair to leave the café.

He barely got two steps away before Kira snatched his arm with those sharp, sharp nails.

"No please wait," the woman said in a breathless rush. She had that darn cute vulnerable/not-vulnerable tone that instantly hit Jou right between the eyes.

"S…sure," the blonde said in a daze, his legs returning to his seat despite his brain's better judgment.

"It's…Katsuya you make a fine argument and …and," Kira started to lead up to something.

"And?" Jou prompted.

"And you remind me of my son so much that…well I wonder if you would be opposed to being my escort for that special evening I am working up towards."

"Eh…wait…WHAT? You want me to horn in on yer already messed up dinner-date with your son?" Jou jolted in shock.

"Katsuya, you don't understand," Kira fixed her eyes pleadingly on him. "I…I…even if I tried, and I assure you after that sort of argument I would…I-I would never be able to relax myself enough that…I could follow that advise. I need someone with me who will…keep me at level of a mother rather than some icy corporate suit. I need…please I need you."

Jou felt a small sock to the stomach at those words. Yet even so, even with his weakness towards tough-girls, and his need to set-straight cold-hearts and his aroused interest in this mother-son relationship he'd just stumbled into Joey had to say it.

"No! There is no way!"

"Please-"

"Ya don't undertand," Jou rapidly shook his head, "I-I ain't …I mean I'm NOT the type that ya take to fancy restaurants. I am…I am a mutt! I'd be even worse than a kid in that sorta place."

Images of the few times Jou had tried to improve himself ran like a gag-reel through his mind. All the times he'd tried to be serious, where he'd tried to be sophisticated…hell where he'd simply tried to act like Seto didn't intimidate the hell out of him…all those tries had failed.

Jou didn't know the first thing about the lives of the rich and important and he certainly didn't know how to act when visiting a social stratosphere so far above his own.

"I…I'll just end up embarrassing ya," Jou grimaced, clenching his fists against the nice tablecloth and forcing back the very unmanly tears that were trying to break free.

Kira stared at him for a moment, then smiled angelically and took Jou's hand in her own, unclenching it from the material.

"You are a very genuine soul who has a bravery I will never know. I want that at my table. I know there will be certain mannerisms you will be without and that there will be some taboos you will not understand but…but I can help you if that is really what you feel you need so that you can come with me and help me win back my son's love."

"Ya…ya'd really be willing ta spend the rush right before the holidays…teaching an idiot table-manners?" Jou tried to play off his embarrassment and shame with a joke.

Kira let go of his hand and sat up very straight and regal with a strange sort of determined grin on her pale lips.

"I told you, I am a very determined woman, Mister Katsuya. If I say I can do something I can do something and if I say that I can turn you into enough of a gentleman that you will be able to comfortably escort me to dinner so that I do not act like a perfect gentlewoman…then you shall be ready in time."

Nervously Jou cleared his aching throat and none-too-subtly wiped his eyes dry against his sleeve.

"I-It's not like not knowin' which fork ta use at a stupid diner really matters ta me," Jou tried to redeem some of his very quickly fading masculinity. "I-I just…it's just when I see all those rich people lookin' like I just tossed their prized poodle into the blender I-I get a little…ya know."

"I know Katsuya," Kira grinned in a way that made Jou wonder whether the woman could see right through him. "I won't let your pride be damaged…I swear."

"…Thank you," Jou blushed.

Kira nodded smartly and then began to tell him all the little tips and tricks she had learned for presenting oneself as an elitist.

By the time Jou managed to return home that night not only had he forgotten about the issue of Serenity's Christmas Eve plans, he'd also lost about a pound of hair and two pounds of skin-cells in a make-over that he'd go to his grave swearing he'd never gone through as well he had gained a fancy suit that he'd never be able to pay back even if he worked until he was one-hundred years old.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

In the center of town, not quite around the same time Jou was having tea with Kira but still earlier than when Yugi introduced Mai to Otogi's beta-testing, a certain brunette CEO seemed to be losing his first argument to his secretary.

"I'll repeat myself just one more time," Higa sneered down at her still seated employer, "if you don't agree to skip the Christmas Eve company-party and actually take the day off I will quit!"

"And I'd like to repeat myself," Seto said with an amused smirk, "I have no idea what business it could possibly be of yours what I do or do not do on the 24th, which is still several days away if you hadn't noticed."

"Not that far away that I am not already neck-deep in in-voices and memos over the whole affair," Akuro rolled her eyes once before returning them to glower at Seto. "And it is my business. You see when you are grumpy you tend to also get angry and when you get angry you tend to try to take it out on any unfortunate soul who has business with you, and when you are seeking vengeance against poor corporate souls I WIND UP WITH MORE WORK!"

Seto quirked and eyebrow and was about to ask more when his secretary pulled something orange out of her pocket and tossed it at his forehead.

"Ouch what was-" Seto caught the object as it fell towards the floor, "this…this is my migraine medication! What are you doing with-"

"I'm using it as a visual aide. If you will look at the bottle you will see that there are exactly four pills left within it. Do you know what's significant about that number?"

"Uhh."

"Four pills equal only four days within which it is safe for you to get a migraine and not cause me pain and suffering with your bellyaching. It is also too few a number to get us through this last week of pre-holiday HELL and the equally HELLISH PARTY!! SO JUST DO THE WORLD A FAVOR AND TAKE THE DAY OFF!!" Akuro screamed so loud that Seto almost did reach for one of his diminished supply of medication.

Rolling the bottle in his hand with great consideration Seto took a moment to think before speaking.

"…I believe I am perfectly able of handling the intrigues of office life even without the help of a high-strength dose of pain-killer," Seto sighed when his secretary looked like she was about to throw her much more heavier and spiked shoe at his forehead the CEO quickly added, "but as this seems to be an issue of great concern for you I will agree to give the event a miss this year."

"Thank you so much Kaiba-sama," Akuro sighed heavily. "You have removed a mountain of stress from my shoulders."

"Hmm…but this doesn't mean that you are allowed to cut corners for the rest of the employees. The annual Christmas party is one of the few traditions that Kaiba Corp has held onto over the years and one of the reasons our employee contentment status has not wavered more than a few percentage point in the last four years."

"I understand sir," Akuro smiled warily.

Unfortunately for the secretary's temperament just as this one disaster was settled the phones began to ring heralding in yet another one.

"This is Kaiba's office," Akuro answered the phone on Seto's desk professionally. She nodded along redundantly for a few minutes then her pretty face went dark and stormy. "GOD DAMN IT JUST THROW THE LITTLE BUGGER OUT THEN! WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR-"

Because Kaiba felt it was only his right to scream at employees over the phone the CEO dove at the phone and pried it away from Akuro's hands before she could finish giving her orders.

"This is Kaiba, what seems to be the trouble," Seto called out quickly. There was a moment of anxious quiet then a small voice hesitantly spoke up.

"K-Kaiba-san? This…t-this is Habiki …f-from the Arcade Management floor? A-ah you see…sir there is a small problem as I was t-telling your secretary that a-a um…a b-boy down h-here seems to be um…well he's not doing anything wrong precisely…only winning a few g-games really… but he is disturbing the other guests and I was wondering-"

"Just hold on," Seto groaned, "I'll be down in a minute myself to handle this."

As he hung up the phone and stood from his desk Akuro tried her hardest to glower a hole right through Seto's head.

"What do you think you are doing? We have other employees that can handle this sort of situation," the black-haired woman growled.

"Weren't you the one telling me just a minute ago that I should get out of the office?" Seto smirked as he straightened his jacket.

"B-But Kaiba-sama…t-the work? The contracts? The-"

"Unlike my poor unfortunate staff I happen to be very productive under stress," Seto continued to taunt. "All the important documents to be used in the new year have been drawn up spare a final assessment of that grant we were going to award to the Green Ridge Orphanage which I cannot finish until my lawyer comes back from his skiing vacation on the 28th."

"B-But you…but that means…" Akuro whimpered.

"That means you begged me out of an event that I actually had time for? Or that I somehow dodged the work for that event?" Seto grinned.

"I-I…I'm just going to get back to work," Akuro groaned in defeat as she trudged past Seto out the office-door towards her own desk finally realizing that she hadn't won an argument with her employer that, in fact, there was no way to win an argument against him.

"Make sure you order the very best alcohol for that party Higa-san! I'm pretty sure by the time the catering company is finished with you, you'll need it," Seto laughed as he walked past the woman's desk into the elevator.

Though he tried to suppress the childish tendency for the sake of both his own reputation and the comfort of his employees, Seto Kaiba really was a protégée and as such he could worm his way out of any particular job he didn't want. Such head-games were Kaiba's real forte no matter how much he loved Duel Monsters. It was just lucky for the sanity of Domino city that Kaiba didn't allow himself to play them very often.

The elevator swiftly descended and by the time Seto had finished calculating the Christmas bonuses for his entirely redundant accounting staff the CEO had reached the Arcade level.

Not five feet away from the doors Seto could already pick up the sounds of distress coming from the arcade floor. There were little kids crying and older kids screaming while parents debated among themselves over whether or not to intervene. And in the midst of this chaos was one lone arcade attendant.

"M-Mister Kaiba! O-Over here sir!" said idiot called out the moment his eyes latched onto Kaiba's.

Seto flinched at the direct address because soon every eye in the arcade was turned on him, sizing him up in that way the public always did with celebrities. It raked Seto Kaiba's every nerve to imagine these unexceptional people judging him about the sorts of decisions they would never have to make.

What surprisingly didn't bother him were the whispers and gapped jaws of the children in the crowd. For whatever reason, maybe simply because it appealed to his own admitted vanity, Seto had always liked kids. He wasn't particularly good at interacting with teenagers or the lesser category called 'tweenagers' but in a room of five to eight year olds Seto could feel at home.

"What's the problem?" Seto asked the attendant after forcing his way through the sea of older guests. Fortunately no one had tried to grope him this time.

"It's that boy right there," Hibiki-san pointed to a small figured crouched over the controls of the KC Medieval Adventure. "He's been challenging all the other customers, young and old, and he hasn't lost once."

"And this is bad why?" Seto groaned.

"I-I told you he's …well he's upsetting the others," Hibiki finally recognized the importance of whispering in the midst of a crowd.

Seto suppressed the urge to roll his eyes or yell at the gathered crowd about their pathetic incompetence and instead turned to study the child.

Seto supposed the child could be considered cute. His brown skin seemed extremely healthy, lit with a sort of glow that only children possessed. And the boy had the typical plump cheeks yet high cheekbones, the desired slightly turned up nose, cherubic lips and the slight concave in the chest that most young boys had before their muscles had a chance to catch up to their height.

But there were definitely traits in this child that argued his maturity. The way the boy wore his black and white striped oxford shirt with the collar turned out neatly suggested the boy wasn't fidgety. The way he didn't bother to sweep his ebony hair out of his eyes as he played suggested the boy was very fixated on whatever task he applied himself to. And the slightly bored yet highly competitive look in his ruby eyes…that reminded Seto of himself. As he'd proven upstairs with his secretary it was not easy to be very smart. There were always people around you who tried to make you feel inferior and didn't react well if they were proven wrong.

Seto wondered if this boy didn't have many friends to play with, like Seto hadn't had many friends to play with. He wondered if the boy was playing the single-player games now because he didn't want to get in trouble rather than because he liked those sorts of games.

Pulling himself back up from the depth of thought Seto held a hand up against the complaints and whispers that had been rising in the circle of employees and concerned older costumers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to apologize for any problems that have arisen during your visit here today, however, I feel I must also remind everyone that this is a place of competition albeit casual competition. I understand that some of you are upset by the new challenge brought into the games today by a young man whom I intend to talk to in a moment myself. I'm going to tell you right now that I have no intention of making this boy leave as he has done nothing wrong. Losing is the risk we all must take and you parents should teach your kids the good sportsmanship to accept the loss. Now please everyone go back to your games or I will have to call in security and lock down the entire arcade."

Almost immediately the crowd dispersed. No one wanted to face the wails of a dozen children denied the joys of an arcade due to only a few people's complaints. Hibiki lingered on a few minutes longer to all but slobber over Kaiba in gratitude for the speech but eventually he too left leaving Seto alone with the boy who hadn't even bothered to look up from the screen.

Seto was still gathering his thoughts over what to say when the boy suddenly turned to stare at him and sneered; "You better not be here to tell me to take down my game. I didn't do anything against the rules and I certainly didn't FORCE anyone to lose to me."

"I wasn't going to ask you anything like that. The kids should all benefit from a strong opponent and as for the older teens…well they can only blame themselves for being so weak as to lose to someone years younger than themselves," Seto assured the boy.

The young gamer seemed taken aback by this because for a moment he just stared up at Seto in confusion, the bridge of his nose crinkled in meditation. Then, apparently after deciding Seto wasn't another lying adult, the boy smiled wide enough to show a missing molar and gave a short salute of a nod.

"Okay then. My names Akio Emichō, or it is this week anyway," the boy introduced himself.

"Nice to make your acquaintance, Akio. My name is Seto Kaiba," the brunette said plainly.

"…Gee…no way! The real Seto Kaiba!" Akio gawked. Seto had to chuckle.

"Yes the real Seto Kaiba."

"Wow…uh well um…gee can I say something about your games without sounding like a total drooling boot-licker?" Akio blushed slightly.

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt," Seto smirked.

"Okay well then I guess ….your games are totally the most awesome ever!" Akio cheered, "I mean I've been to a lot of arcades, well not as many as I'd like to, living in a stupid little town in _Indiana_ most of the year, but anyway –whatever—I always like playing at your arcades best. I especially like that first game you made when you opened the first Kaiba Land the um…the uhhh Space Adventure one? Ya, and I remember you first opened it in some Death-T tournament or whatever but both me and my dad totally didn't care about that and we waited for like AGES until the rides were opened up to everyone else and—"

"Okay, okay I think I get the picture," Seto laughed outright as he held up his hands to signal the boy to slow down.

Akio stopped mid-sentence and took several deep breaths before summing up his entire little speech into three little words, "You are awesome."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," Seto rolled his eyes. "Now if you don't mind I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Me uh sure I guess," Akio shrugged.

"First of all I'd like to ask you where your chaperone is," Seto frowned slightly. "With some of the health warnings I've had to put up on every available wall surface most parents won't let their child even watch a duel without supervision."

As Seto had begun to suspect the boy's face dimmed at the mention of a parental figure and he turned his eyes back onto the game screen. "My dad…he's flying back home with his girlfriend as we speak…I'm just hanging out here until my mother's secretary comes to pick me up. Guess they're all too busy this week to actually spend time with me."

Seto nodded his head solemnly. Having been bounced around through several relatives before he and Mokuba eventually wound up in the orphanage Seto knew entirely too well how the disagreements of parents could cause great suffering on the part of the poor kid stuck between them.

"Okay then, question number two," Seto said gently. "What would you say to acting as my personal opponent for the next couple of days?"

"W-what?" the boy gasped so harshly that Seto momentarily had to worry about damage to the kid's throat.

"You obviously put up a good fight or else I wouldn't have been called down here in the first place," Seto shrugged as if this was a sort of deal he made every day. "And I could certainly use a fresh perspective of an American duelist to help me test the quality of my arcade."

"Y-You're…no way! You're kidding me! I mean…you've got to be…don't ya?" Akio's face blushed anxiously.

"I never kid," Seto said formally.

"W-well then sure! I mean yah! Definitely! I'd be like the craziest person in the world if I said no to an offer like this! O-Oh but…I-I mean…I don't know if I'll be able to get here every day," Akio winced. "I mean I might be expected to hang around her stupid apartment watching subtitled Christmas shows or something."

"I'll have a word with your chaperone when they arrive," Seto assured the boy.

"…Wow, okay. Only…well I gotta ask ya somethin' Kaiba sir…why would you want to do that all for me?" Akio asked.

Strangely the question still managed to jar Seto. He'd already been thinking over how exactly he would persuade the boy's chaperone to bring Akio to his arcade every day until the holiday closing but his mind had sort of skipping over the reasoning for why.

The boy reminded Seto of himself but…but there were many other children he'd seen who held equal promise and Seto had never even considered escorting them through his building.

In the end Seto figured that it was the boy's loneliness that appealed to him and the stubborn way the boy had tried to act as if it didn't bother him. It wasn't a real rational reason but that was all Seto had.

"You intrigue me," Seto shrugged, "because you remind me a little bit of myself at a younger age. Other than that I couldn't say."

"No offense but that sounds kinda well…stuck-up. Do you only like people how are the same as you?" Akio asked even as he slid off the game bench and followed as Seto began to led him into a less crowded section of the arcade.

"It is a scientific fact that individuals sharing similar traits tend to cooperate more than those with opposing traits," Seto tried to dismiss the question.

"Huh…guess that might explain me and my mother than. We're really not cooperate."

"Uncooperative," Seto corrected.

"Right," Akio nodded, "she doesn't seem to like me all that much and I guess it could be because were so different. I don't even look like I'm her kid. She's really pretty pale like you and has this really, really blonde hair that's sort of silvery except it has some golden in it too if you look close enough."

"You don't believe your mother likes you?" Seto couldn't help but latch onto the boy's words. Again it was his own less-than-loved history that made him atypically empathetic to such plights.

"Well…ya," Akio shrugged simply. "I mean she's always working. She likes spending time with adults not kids. And every time she looks at me my mother is always …nervous I guess? Ya she looks like she's afraid I'm going to leap up and bite her neck open or claw her eyes out like those creepy little scaly mogwai things from that old movie _Gremlins._"

If the boy had said that his mother simply didn't talk to him much, or that she spent more time with a boyfriend than with her own flesh and blood then Seto would have carried out his plan to keep the kid happily distracted from the selfish problems of his parents for as long as he was capable. He would have pulled a Raul Dahl and oriented the world towards the kid's own desires rather than those of his parents. If he had said anything about his parents…except that he mother must not love him because she was as business oriented as Seto …

"Akio, I don't think-"

"Ooh! Yes! Space Adventures! Come on I can so beat you at this!" Akio caught sight of the slightly more advanced laser-tag arena. Before Seto could even try to stop him the boy had grabbed a breast plate and a laser-pistol off the wall.

"I'll bet that I can hit five alien invaders before you can even hit one. I'll even buy you dinner if I lose," Akio grinned challengingly.

"Wait I-" Seto tried again, but this time he was interrupted by the game actress running out of the staged battle zone.

"EEK! Help! The space-station has been overrun!"

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

It was definitely after Yugi had taken Mai to Otogi's and returned to his own place to find Rebecca all but putting Atem through a lie-detector test while Arthur and Solomon were recalling their previous adventures to the slightly bemused Hawkins and a slightly glassy-eyed Leon von Shrouder when Seto finally got his chance to speak to Akio about his mother.

The game had been diverting to say the least and no amount of psychological necessity had been able to keep Seto from throwing himself into the competition. Much like Yugi and Atem, when given the opportunity Seto could not resist a challenge in any form.

It had taken Akio and himself three hours to decide on a winner. Akio kept crying out for one more round and his scores were always so surprisingly close to Seto's that the usually arrogant brunette hadn't even thought to refuse a match.

Eventually though Seto had to admit that he was being a little bit TOO childish, even for his own company, and he'd forfeited to his young competitor and had taken the boy to the on-site cafeteria to wait for the announcement from the front-desk about the boy's chaperone.

"What did I tell ya? I've got mad Matrix skills! Freaking Neo wouldn't be able to dodge a hit from me," Akio was still preening over his victory as he ate through a basket of onion-rings covered in mustard and a plate of yakitori skewers drenched in soy-sauce.

"Akio, before we had our game, do you remember what you were telling me about your mother," Seto snatched at the open opportunity.

Akio seemed to stumble at the sudden return of the subject but he nodded his head just the same.

"Well I've been meaning to tell you that I think you may be judging the woman a little too harshly," Seto sighed, rubbing his temples against a slight ache. "I know I have no real way of …of assessing the situation with as much clarity as-"

"Mister Kaiba, you and I just spent like three hours screaming at the top of our lungs while shooting fake lasers at guys dressed in rubber-foam alien costumes, ya don't have to talk like an adult again just because we're having a 'real' conversation," Akio giggled slightly making Seto's headache wane immediately.

"Yes, I …I sometimes forget what I must sound like to others. Usually I only keep company with other men who like to talk as though they've swallowed a few volumes of the encyclopedia," Seto said with a faint but remarkably open grin. Unlike the other times today that he had smiled, this time Seto felt like he wasn't simply acting as a man who ran a business for children, but rather a teenager who just happened to be looking after a kid.

"It's okay. I can tell that you're just sort of stuck in an old habit," Akio shrugged as he turned to his chocolate coke –an apparently all-America drink that was a mutation of the root-beer float which Akio had had to order specifically while still intriguing the sometimes way too tight-laced chef until he'd come out to ask a few questions about it--.

"As I was say, I think you may be judging your mother a little too harshly. What you said about her liking business more than liking you, while being possible…could also simply be a way for your mother to be hiding."

"Hiding…why would my mother want to hide?" Akio stared at Seto as if he'd grown a pair of fuzzy antennae like the aliens they'd beaten.

"Like I said, I don't know this for certain but…what you have to understand is that sometimes adults…well we're just as prone to fear and embarrassment as children only we are even worse at admitting it than the most stubborn bully you have ever known. Your mother no doubt loves her job, otherwise she might have quit when she and your father were first having trouble. Only…when it comes to you she might not be choosing work over your company…she might simply be afraid that she can't control what happens between you and her in the same way she can control the way she meets clients and makes deals in her business. You see…more than children adults love to feel in control. It makes us feel…well in a way I suppose control is what makes us feel that we truly are adults. And when…when things come along that can't be controlled…things such as relationships with people we love…we want to retreat back into the things that can be controlled rather than take a risk…. Do you understand anything that I've said to you?"

With the strange focus only a child could have while chewing on a mouthful of onion rings Akio slowly nodded his head. Once he finished chewing Akio coughed and said; "Ya I guess I understand only…well it just sounds weird to me. I mean sure people are hard to control but why would that be scary?"

"Because the rest of adult life is so controlled," Seto sighed. "It's the contrast that makes it terrifying as well as the fact that people are so much harder to fix if you do something wrong. You never know how long it might take you to get a reservation at the better sort of restaurant and-"

"Wait, wait, pull it back there buddy," Akio interrupted Kaiba yet again. "I was getting ya that time right up until you started talking about restaurants and crap."

"Maybe that was a bit of a older example but sometimes when an adult wants to make an apology that have to come up with some pretty expensive gestures of affection and-"

"That is such bullcrap!" Akio wailed. "A three-hundred dollar rack of lamb can't make up for a fight and a thousand dollar diamond sure as hell can't make up for the special times you've missed! Your money can't show love, only your love can show love!"

The argument had the ring of absolute child logic to it that always made parents feel enriched by their children and yet Seto couldn't help but feel like Akio's words were a personal attack.

(**A/N:** Somebody is still feeling guilty for brushing off a dinner-date aren't they?)

"When you're a kid maybe that sort of logic hold true but when you've got the sorts of responsibilities that I have, when you can't spend the amount of time you want, or the sort of attention you want on someone then it's nearly impossible to do anything besides rely on gestures and games. It's cut-throat in the world of business and only those who are rich enough or smart enough can have the leisure to actually-"

Akio was looking at Seto like he'd grown feelers against so Seto forced his grant to come to a grinding stop. It was actually pretty easy when Seto realized it wasn't Akio that he was upset. It was another person…one who kept invading his thoughts and making him feel guilty and awkward and out of control when it should have been THAT person feeling all those things.

Jou was the one chasing after him, damn it, Seto shouldn't have to worry like this when it was JOU doing the chasing.

"Mister Kaiba, you're really weird. It's like you don't even know you're still a kid."

"I'm not a kid," Seto smirked ruefully.

"Anyone who can zap aliens over his shoulder like you can has at least a LITTLE bit of a kid left in them," Akio said holding up his thumb and index finger with a small demonstrative space between the tips.

While Seto was digesting the fact that someone on this planet besides his own little brother could see him as more than the stoic genius that ran Kaiba Corp the overhead speakers blared for a young Emichō-san to meet his chaperone at the front entrance.

"Well…it was really fun today Mister Kaiba. I'll come again tomorrow just like you said I could so…don't forget to come and play with me some more," Akio said as he slid out of his seat and headed towards the door.

"No I…I always hold to my promises," Seto promised. Akio flashed another one of those gap-toothed grins then twirled around and was gone…leaving Seto alone with a tangled web of new thoughts to navigate.

"I am not a kid," Seto repeated to himself, "not a kid."

Obviously not believing himself Seto experimentally reached out for one of Akio's remaining onion rings and he bit at it experimentally as if it could prove the answer one way or another.

Much to the CEO's surprise he liked the taste and he finished off the ring in a single chomp.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

After Jounouchi had finished his shower and tried to sleep in his new haircut, and after Yugi and Atem managed to escape the party going on downstairs to retreat to the duel king's bedroom to fall asleep twined together, and after Seto rescued Mokuba from another Smart Kuriboh© meltdown to go home to bed…another young man sat awake.

Despite the lateness of the hour and despite his partner having crept in to sleep at his side Bakura found that rest eluded him.

Instead of restful thoughts of his aibou scampering through the house continuing to decorate the last few corners of the house that he and the dark one had missed, Bakura's thoughts kept coming back to the less appealing parts of the day.

In particular his mind kept coming back to what Lawrence Bakura had been saying about him…about how he was a damned soul with a corrupt nature…and how it was only a matter of time before that sort of darkness would fall out of Bakura's control and cause Ryou serious pain.

And for the first time in all his eons of living Bakura was of a clear enough mind to wonder if maybe…maybe that old homophobic bastard…didn't have a point.

**ENDCHAPTER**

**Masaka: *holding up throbbing wrists* **Oooouchies!

**Yami Masaka: **That's the only problem with these laptops…the angle of the keyboard does nothing for the comfort of the user's joints.

**Jason: **Well at least you've finished another chapter. Just one or two…maybe three more chapters and then you're done.

**Masaka:** If I have the time. Even though it's winter break I'm stilling going for my permit

**Yami Masaka: **That driver's permit you didn't get when you were sixteen?

**Jason:** That permit whose written test you failed today even after carrying around the driver's manual for months?

**Masaka:** ***sinking into the dark tentacle embrace of her perfectionist side***

**Yami Masaka: **Ack!** *whacking the personal demon with her specially designed stilettos* **Jason, you dumb mutt, you aren't supposed to mention tests to a perfectionist, don't you know anything?

**Jason: **What? It's not like it's that unusual to fail the first written test at the DMV. Her own boyfriend admitted to failing it…hell her dad said he'd failed a bunch of times for a motorcycle license.

**Yami Masaka:** Logic has nothing to do with a perfectionism attack!

**Jason: **Sheesh it's not like we can't help her study tonight if she wants

**Masaka: *restored and ready with a highlighter, pencil and three copies of the driver's manual for Arizona drivers*** Okay then shall we get started.

**Yami Masaka: *glowers at Jason***

**Jason: *really-not-happy-to-study-when-could-be-sleeping look* **Ya we're…ready

**Masaka: **Ah yes! But before we go to that there are a few things to say about the chapter. First of all…I HATE writing Seto Kaiba

**Yami Masaka: **The man has one of those stoic personalities that is hard to motivate to do anything at the same time he has this almost too personal genius side of him that makes us have to try and think up head-games that a CEO might play.

**Masaka: **I got lucky with that bit about tricking the secretary into thinking he was going to the Christmas party so that he could get out of WORKING on the Christmas party thing but I'm not sure how much else really worked.

**Jason: **And we think it's true that Seto must like kids more than adults. I mean the man made a freaking AMUSEMENT PARK to challenge Yugi the first time he was defeated in the manga.

**Masaka: **Also I feel very happy that I managed to tack on that little moment of ringshipping at the end of this chapter. There is going to be DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA like you've never seen from that pairing before the end because honestly Bakura was made for drama but…well they sort of have a face-pace that makes it almost impossible to break up between chapters so until Jou and Seto are mostly finished I can't start of ringshipping.

**Jason:** Well she CAN and she WILL…but ya the ringshipping is sort of at the climax of the story right along with Yugi's Christmas surprise for Atem.

**Yami Masaka: **WISH US LUCK IN FINISHING THE STORY BY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!


	7. Four Tongs On A Fancy Fork

**Masaka: *moping only slightly* **Missed another Christmas deadline…didn't I?

**Yami Masaka: *enjoying the many Bath & Bodywork gifts she got with her hikari's visa giftcard*** Well…you weren't IGNORING the story, you were just busy

**Jason: **And then you were tired because honestly 'Saka it is only during breaks and Saturdays that you allow yourself to collapse so completely into a cute, pajama-clad, snuggly, slender-

**Yami Masaka: *glowering*** Is there an end to this little rant or do you want some privacy and a censor-bar for your dirty mouth

**Jason: *blushing* **I'm good

**Masaka: **Ah well I'm still in a pretty good mood about this story despite the delays. I'm gonna keep working on it but I know that it will only ever get done when it gets done

**Jason: …**Whatever that means

**CHAPTERSTART**

Anzu looked nervously over the lunch-table at her friends. It was only two days until Christmas and yet everyone seemed less than jolly. Bakura looked like he hadn't been sleeping since the now notorious –among their group anyway—Murakami baiting incident, Ryou looked harassed and panicked like his mind was stuck in an eternal conflict over supporting his father or his dark. Jou was being atypically quiet as he constantly muttered to himself over the complete set of formal silverware at his place setting.

Honda looked livelier than the others at least as he was discussing the route he was going to take to his brother's cabin with Serenity all the while keeping an eye on his blonde friend.

Then there were the Motus… Anzu wasn't sure how to begin thinking about those two. Atem looked happy but strained, as if he wasn't getting something he really wanted even though it was right in front of him **(A/N: **A Rebecca Hawkins in the house is by far the best way to preserve Yugi's virginity**).**

As for Yugi well…her short friend looked…he looked like some of the more contemplative statues of Buddha. It was a serious sort of contemplation that Anzu was almost loath to interrupt…however, since she only had about fifteen more minutes until she'd have to return for final dress-rehearsals at the dance theater, Anzu decided to just bring it up anyway and damn the consequences.

"So uh…the Ishtars got our package already," the brunette broke the silence nervously.

"O-Oh…they did?" Ryou jolted and desperately fixed onto the conversation. "That's amazing of you Anzu-chan. I mean with the holiday rush I-I would have figured our gifts would arrive after the holiday."

"Yah well what can I say," Anzu preened in nerdish delight. "I was downtown for a costume-fitting anyway so I just decided to take care of the gifts."

"Eh…what did we get 'em?" Jou broke away from his staring-contest with the cutlery, adjusting his hooded jacket as he turned. Anzu glowered momentarily at the annoying article of clothing that Jou had for some reason decided to wear every day for the last week despite its rather form-devouring shape then sighed and answered.

"I got Ishizu a new camera for her scrapbooking hobby, I got Malik a new pair of motorcycle gloves and I figured Raishido would get as much a giggle out of _The Mummy _trilogy as Ya-I mean Atem and Bakura did."

"If we get a letter from Malik detailing how Raishido has had nightmares about it, I wouldn't be surprised." Bakura chuckled in a strangely sedated tone, "Unlike the pharaoh and I, Raishido hasn't had the best sampling of Egyptian curses."

"Well I didn't know what else to buy him," Anzu whined, "I mean can anyone here tell me something that man might like?"

Silence swept through the café, even consuming the members of the conversation that hadn't been paying attention.

"A certificate for a tattoo removal?" Honda suggested cattishly. Serenity punched him in the shoulder while the others just rolled their eyes.

"Raishido's whole world has been Malik for so many years," Yugi finally spoke up in a quiet, mild tone. "I'm not sure he's ever thought about his own desires at all. Your gift is as good a guess as any, though I'd figure that with Malik's returned sanity Raishido really does have everything he could ever want."

"Since when have you been so fixated on the Ishtars, aibou?" Atem asked his other with a smile so warm that even Anzu could feel its heat from a whole table-length away.

**(A/N: **Could Yami have pettishly arranged the seating to keep Anzu at a distance from his aibou? …Naaaah not OUR Yami ***snicker*)**

Yugi ignored his other's question to smile at Anzu; "I'm really glad they got their gifts before the rush, it makes things a little less complicated. Veering off from that, how are your practices coming along Anzu?"

"Beautifully," Anzu sighed dreamily. "Being in the production of the Nutcracker is everything I wished it would be. I'm nervous and yet at the same time I can't wait until the curtain opens."

Before Anzu could start in on the details, however, a cold wind blew through the coffee shop as the door was thrown open for a new customer.

"F-father!" Ryou jolted to his feet at his elder's entrance.

"Oh just great," Bakura grumbled.

Fortunately before Lawrence could say a single word, more figures came in from the snow as well. Professor Hawkins and his children, alongside Mrs. Masaki and Mr. Honda, and also Rebecca and Leon and Grandpa, all came tromping in from the white. It should be noted that they all looked much merrier than the dour history professor.

"Yugi!" Rebecca dove right at the short duelist. "Oh Yugi it's looking so great, you'll absolutely love it!"

"Hey you!" Atem snarled at the small blonde. Rebecca's only response was to stick out her tongue at the ex-pharaoh.

"What's she going on about, kid? What's going to be so great?" Bakura asked Leon as the purple-haired boy devotedly walked over to help Rebecca out of her thick winter-jacket.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Rebecca interrupted her beau. Her focus then returned to Atem and she frowned. "Hey, why aren't you wearing the sweater I got you."

No doubt inspired as a sort of vengeance against Atem for taking 'her' Yugi, Rebecca had given the former pharaoh an early Christmas gift. It was a sweater that was even worse than the stupid reindeer sweater that Yugi had charmed him into. What exactly the initial pattern had been neither puzzle-master could determine but in the end it didn't matter because nothing on earth was going to get Atem to wear something with that much pink in the threading. Nothing.

"I-It's my fault Becca," Yugi dove in, "I uh…I was supposed to do the laundry this week and well, you know the sweater must have gotten thrown in the hamper with the rest and now …well give me a week to find it will you?"

"Oh don't rush Yugi-sweetie, that sweater isn't holiday themed so as long as it gets cleaned before spring-thaw I'd expect Yami to get some use out of it."

"…Like hell," Atem muttered under his breath while Mrs. Masaki distracted Rebecca's attention by giving her daughter a very affectionate hug and squealing: "oooh I'm sorry my precious ballerina but it's time we get going or else you'll be late."

Anzu felt her entire head heated in embarrassment at her mother's antics. Her mother's uber friendly streak often times got out of hand, though it was even worse for Anzu to admit that she was just as bad for being sweet.

**(A/N: **See people, overly emotional affection is just part of the Masaki genetic-code**)**

"Yah, you better get outta here too Hirito, if you and your girl want to get to the lodge in time," Mr. Honda said, walking over to his son to give the boy an affectionate clap on the shoulder.

"S-sure thing pop," Honda smiled, nervously checking over his shoulder for Jou's reaction. By sheer dumb luck the blonde was back to counting the number of fork's teeth on each of his formal silverware accoutrements.

"Yugi, I've just spoken with Arthur and I'm going to be spending the evening with him and the Hawkins if you don't need me for anything," Grandpa looked pleadingly over with Yugi.

It was Atem who answered with a very quick; "that would be no problem at all!"

"It would also be nice if you could watch over the younger ones," the old man tacked on at the end.

"No problem at all," Yugi laughed nervously while Atem wilted into the table.

"Oh don't worry too much about us," Leon spoke up for the depressed pharaoh's sake. "Rebecca and I are planning to spend the eve at the Kaiba Manor with Mokuba. It's very rare that the whole pre-teen dueling squad can get together."

Rebecca groaned and flopped her head affectionately against Leon's shoulder, causing the thirteen-year-old to blush maroon; "I've told you already Leon-bear. We aren't the pre-teen dueling squad we're the next generation dueling royalty, please stop underestimating us."

"R-Right…ne-next generation dueling ro-royalty," Leon wheezed in joyful embarrassment.

"Not to be the cynic of the group but…aren't the von Shrouders still at odds with the Kaibas?" Serenity spoke up as she was getting on her own winter-coat to follow Honda out to the car.

"Mokuba talked to his brother about it or I think he did anyway. And even if he didn't…I'm not my brother," Leon said with icy resolve.

"Besides if Mister Battery-Acid-For-Blood has a problem with it I'll just kick the jerk's teeth in. I've been taking judo lessons lately and I'm pretty sure my third level black-belt tops Kaiba's stupid card-shuriken trick," Rebecca said, mindfully keeping her eyes on Atem.

Atem tactfully didn't say anything and even more tactfully pushed his chair an inch away from Yugi's.

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Seto was happy. Which was weird. As a general rule Seto Kaiba didn't do 'happy'. He could work 'satisfaction' into his controlled sense of self, but 'happiness' had always seemed too juvenile an emotion to really bother with. And it seemed that Akio Emichō was the root of this behavior, though it was too depressing for Seto to imagine that a little play-time with a child was all that his mind had been needing to get over years of mental traumas.

It had become something of a routine between them. Seto would spend his morning with Mokuba, come into work for an hour or two –just long enough to send his secretary into hysterics—and then he'd spend the entire afternoon in the arcade with this strange little boy.

What was even more bewildering was how the two of them always ended up having philosophical discussions. Most were about how Seto needed to get over himself –not that Akio was ever quite that blunt—but a fair few had actually been Seto's advise towards Akio's own issues:

"_It's not that fighting with emotion is bad, but if you're not careful to hold yourself back a little it can be very easy for you to misconstrued a situation that has more to it than what you first see," Kaiba had actually told the boy after a particularly merciless game of VR Zombie-Hunters._

"_I-I know," Akio had grunted in an embarrassed tone, "i-it's just that…well I seem to make MORE mistakes if I secretly try to calculate for what the enemy is secretively contemplating, you know?"_

Today, Seto and his little companion were playing a few of the lesser games within the arcade. It had been on account of Mokuba's damn near martyrdom during planning stages that Kaiba had bothered included some so-called 'classic' games. Whack-a-mole and pinball had always seemed a bit too low-tech for Seto but the way Akio played the machines was rather…intriguing… in a disaster-spectacle sort of way.

"You know if you hit the machine any harder you might actually manage to keep the mole from ever popping out again," Seto pointed out after watching Akio's thin young arms tremble from the recoil of his strike for the third time.

The boy didn't respond other than to agitatedly push his hair out of his eyes and glower at the taunting mechanical giggles of the electronic rodents.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the dinner you're having with your mother…would it?" Seto goaded further.

"So what if it is, huh! She's the one who has the making up to do to ME! I can act as bratty as I want because she-"

Seto dropped to his knees so that he would be just about at eye-level to Akio. The CEO was surprised at how much effort it took to keep Akio from shrugged the CEO's hand off his shoulders and running off.

"Akio, stop this," Seto said bluntly in the authoritative tone that he generally only used in the boardroom or when he had to play the 'parent' role with Mokuba.

"…I-I don't wanna go. I mean…I mean I remember all the stuff you said, about her just being scared but…I-I'm so ANGRY and-and…w-what if you're wrong? What if she isn't scared and she just doesn't like me? Huh? I-I mean…s-she doesn't have to like me…i-it's not like it's a rule or nothing and…" Akio started to tear-up immediately.

Before Seto could even think of how to react Akio had already thrown himself up against Seto's body burying his snotty little face into Seto's jacket.

Strangely Seto didn't mind. And it was really a good jacket too.

"Emichō-sa… Emichō… Akio, you need to stop crying like this," Seto frowned down at the figure pressed against his chest.

The boy just let out a heartbroken muffled sob that made Seto terribly aware of the fact that he had no idea what sort of behavior was expected of him in this situation. His arms felt particularly useless hanging at his sides.

"Crap, this is Mokuba's forte. He's the only one between the two of us that has any notable interpersonal skills," Seto muttered darkly.

As if summoned by these words, Mokuba Kaiba came bounding along into the arcade with a look of urgent joy on his face.

"Nii-san! Nii-san! You'll never guess who…uh…why are you letting that kid use you as a human handi-wipe?" Mokuba's brilliant introduction tampered off into a tone of plain curiosity.

"Mokuba, this is Akio Emichō, the kid I told you about. He's having a few last minute worries about meeting with his mother," Seto said desperately. His eyes detailed all the facts that his mouth couldn't say.

Mokuba, being both Seto's best-friend and his blood-brother, was able to interpret the entire sub-conversation in less than a minute and the boy quickly took action.

"Oh well, if he's scared of being alone with his mother, why can't you go with him?"

The suggestion was so surprising that Akio stopped mid-sob to join Seto in staring at Mokuba in bewilderment.

"Mokuba, that dinner is going to take place on Christmas Eve…the day you and I spend together no matter what the distractions of the other 364 days of the year," Seto reminded the boy.

"Well you're not going to be going in on Christmas Day this year so technically I have you for two days out of the 365 of the year," Mokuba smirked cheeky.

"B-but I mean…I-I don't wanna break up a-anyone's Christmas," Akio said, pulling a handkerchief out of his jeans and rubbing his eyes in an overly conscientious way.

**(A/N: **It's a boy-pride thing. After the tears are shed we are all supposed to act like nothing happened**)**

"Well you see that's the thing that I was coming to talk to Seto about in the first place. Rebecca Hawkins and Leon von Shrouder are visiting for the holidays and because I never see them I was really hoping to spend the Eve with THEM and well…you know…not my brother?" Mokuba finished by looking directly at Seto with his specially patented "weepy princess in distress" eyes.

It was that level of emotional blackmail that his brother had over him that made Seto entirely unrepentant about the original Kaiba Land VR Adventure and its notorious gender-bent star-character.

"It…wouldn't disturb your mother to have me along would it?" Seto's lips somehow formed the words without his brain ever backing up the orders.

Princess Adrienna was so making a come-back in the next game.

"N-NO! NO PROBLEM AT ALL! I mean..." Akio coughed awkwardly and tried to mask his face as if Seto hadn't just promised him something as precious as the sun, "I will be glad to make the arrangements with my mother's assistant tonight and will contact you if there are any problems."

"Awh only half-a-week and he's starting to sound like you," Mokuba grinned tauntingly at the duo.

"Don't you have another shipment of possessed Kuribohs to be shipping off," Seto blushed puce.

"Nope the Smart Kuribohs© are all safe in their crates…though there was this other duel-monster thing that came up that I thought should mention," Mokuba rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Whatever news the younger Kaiba was going to impart, however, was interrupted by Higa Younger and Elder running towards the Kaiba brothers with equal expressions of horror.

"Misters Kaiba, Misters Kaiba, something terrible has happened!"

**HO-HO-HO**

Ryou didn't like leaving Bakura and his father alone. Bakura could have seen that even without their fate-bound mental-link. However, Bakura knew that Ryou still had a few things to do before this disaster of a holiday really kicked into gear and the ex-thief was NOT going to be the one keeping Ryou from getting the holiday he deserved.

"You're just going to pick up the paychecks from KaibaCorp, pick up a last minute gift and also grab that holiday dinner you ordered from the restaurant you spent the last week searching for because it reminded you of your mother's cooking so much. Doing all that shouldn't take you more than, what, three hours? Me and the old man won't be able to do much more than bruise one another in that sort of time," Bakura had tried to reassure his lover as he scooted the boy towards the door.

"B-But I really would just feel better-"

"Getting through the to-do list, yes I know," Bakura hadn't let Ryou get a word in edgewise.

"Okay well…bye."

"Bye."

"I love you."

"Me too…now go!"

Unfortunately as important as it had been for Ryou to leave, it had quickly become apparent to Bakura that it was only his light's presence that had kept Leonardo and Bakura's bickering in check. And the real sad part of it was that despite his protests, Bakura had known that things would be this bad. Leonardo Bakura's dour behavior that morning at the coffee-shop should have made Bakura wary. Hell, just the man's facial-expression should have made Bakura wary. But Bakura had refused to believe that Leonardo was a big enough jackass that The Kamenwati Kul-Elna Bakura, King of the Egyptian Night, Phantom Silencer of a Hundred Royal Names, Scourge of the Alchemists of Horus, couldn't handle him.

As the hours had ticked by, however, Leo had begun to prove utterly beyond any thief's ability to handle. The man just didn't let up about anything, taking every single action or inaction on Bakura's part as some sort of sign of guilt.

The man could make putting down a coffee mug without a coaster into a mortal offense.

Bakura managed to deal with it for the first hour through sheer willpower, the second hour by drowning himself in egg-nog but when Ryou didn't come home in the third hour Bakura had just had it and decided to screw making a good impression and just leapt on the issues as he saw them.

"LISTEN YOU COCKLESS ACADEMIC-MISER!" Bakura roared over the almost dainty looking older man as he sat with his cup of tea –which the man hadn't wanted until after Bakura had already offered to make it twice-over—"YOU KEEP GOING ON AND ON ABOUT HOW I AM IMMATURE, AND YOU MAKE ALL THESE RIGHTEOUS ARGUMENTS AGAINST ME TO RY, BUT I KNOW THE TRUTH! YOU'RE JUST A GODSDAMN BIGOT AND YOU'RE PISSED OFF THAT I'M BUGGERING YOUR SON!"

As calm and collected as a executioner Leonardo put down his cup –onto its saucer onto a coaster onto the table—and brushed out a few imaginary wrinkles on his slacks.

"The state of 'buggery' going on between you and my son, considering that the boy is of legal age, really has little to do with my opinions. The problem I have with you, Mister Kamenwati Kul-El-Na Bakura …has to do with something more grave than sex-drive."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that you once sold your soul for power, and how I believe such a man as that is far too irresponsible to be trusted with the well-being of another," Leonardo said sharply.

Bakura would have preferred being hit in the gut. He would have preferred if the man did say he hated seeing his son's sex-life betray the norm. He would had preferred if Leonardo somehow combine those two possibilities and wrestled Bakura into a freaking chastity-belt –which really did say something considering Bakura had once taken a 14th century noble woman as a host and had a painfully clear idea of what metal-panties felt like-.

Bakura would have preferred anything…because any other argument wouldn't have hit Bakura with the same weight as this one. Any other curse or assault would have rolled off Bakura's shoulder in a way this accusation of spiritual irresponsibility…just couldn't.

"You don't know a damn thing about my life," Bakura finally spoke after a long moment of tense silence.

"I am a scholar of ancient societies, Kamenwati," Leonardo smirked coldly, "or did you forget that? I spent the last two days blathering on with that unprofessional, irresponsible dolt called Solomon Motu and his equally pathetic cohort Arthur Hawkins so that I could learn everything they knew about you. And I did learn quite a lot."

"…I…I had my reasons," Bakura started to tremble. Though it hadn't happened in a long time, for about as long as he had been back in Ryou's arms, Bakura was starting to hear those damned screams of Kul-Elna's fallen in the back of his mind again.

"You murdered thousands of innocent people to avenge the souls of a hundred blood-soaked thieves. You betrayed friendships, tortured lovers, led armies to slaughter and suppressed souls," Leonardo snorted, casually getting to his feet, "what could possibly excuse that?"

The screams were beginning to get a little louder. Bakura was beginning to pick out individual voices from the din. He could hear the curses of his mother, his foreign-blood mother, searing into his mind.

"It was necessary. The Millennium Items were an abomination that no man would stand to speak against. They brought about the capacity to awaken an evil beyond measure."

Leonardo didn't care that Bakura's eyes were too wide, or that fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had split and blood was trickling between the thief's fingers. The professor walked right up to Bakura anyway and he said it; he said that one thing that Bakura could not, would not, allow to be said.

"Yes, it opened up the way for your greater-half didn't it…Zorc?"

Screams poured into his mind. A blood-lust so sublime that it coated Bakura's throat in the metallic tang of ozone rose from the putrid depths of his soul that Bakura had tried so hard to pretend weren't within him.

He could almost see it, as if he had eyes that could peer within as well as without. There was deep black chasm in a grassland which had just barely beginning to blossom with life. Then there was a flash of green at the bottom of that darkness. A rush like the displaced air of a jet flying by. And then there was the sudden explosion of a hundred sunken and twisted faces melted from flesh to glittering gold-coated bone that twisted further and further into more hideous shapes as they came closer and closer to the cusp of Bakura's reality.

Bakura's own family was going to join in on this little holiday celebration, whether Bakura would want them to or not.

The shadows of his people meshed into a tide of energy that pulsed with a need that Bakura's willpower could not suppress and an anger that Bakura could not control. He raised his banishing hand, the portal of his soul's shadow-gate, up from his side and pointed it directly over Leonardo Bakura's heart.

"I AM NOT ZORC NECROPHILIUS!" Bakura screamed as he let fly a concentrated burst of pure thousand-year-old hatred.

Time seemed to slow down for Bakura as he watched that dark orb turn over and over at is axis. It seemed to be dancing through the distance between Bakura and the old professor.

And then, in an act that cut off the calls of Bakura's ancestors as if they had never been there, Ryou came stumbling between the blast and his father.

Bakura barley had time to croak 'no' before the ball of energy hit its mark…and Ryou collapsed to the floor as if he were a puppet whose strings had finally been cut.

**Ho-Ho-Ho-You'd-All-Hate-If-I-Stopped-Here-I-Know**

Atem was pretty darn sure that he had all his bases covered. To say that he was positive was to certainly bring down disaster, but even so Atem was feeling confident.

Arthur and Grandpa and all the elders were over at the Masaki's apartment swapping stories before the curtain-call for Anzu's performance. Rebecca and Leo were on-route to KaibaCorp where they would be Kaiba's problem for at least five hours. Honda had taken off to the cabin fifteen minutes ago according to the phone-call Yugi had gotten. Jou was off somewhere with an important 'date', Otogi and Mai were…well whatever they were doing they were preoccupied.

Unless the fabric of the universe tore itself open and propelled some pissed-off ancestors forward in time for an impromptu visit, Atem was pretty sure no friends or family were about to interrupt his night.

"Mou hitori no boku, I'm back! Ryou is really thankful that you donated your paycheck without knowing what it was for an –MMMMPH!" Yugi's welcome interrupted with a fiery, dare-I-say desperate, kiss.

"M-Mou hitori-" Yugi whimpered as soon as he had the air to do so.

"We're finally alone, aibou. And you did promise me some attention once that happened. So you better own up to your promises, my dearest light, because I really don't think I can stand this burning desire I have for you any longer," Atem murmured into Yugi's neck, the ex-spirit's lips just ever so lightly grazing across the sensitive skin.

Yugi's knees wobbled terribly as Atem got the mental-update to just how impossibly good his other-half was feeling about all of this.

"Y-Yam…i," Yugi breathed from somewhere behind the cloud of sensation that coated his mind. Something left of the boy's willpower worked its way to the surface because the boy was able to find the wherewithal to pull away far enough to place a plastic bag in Atem's hands.

"I err…may have taken a few dollars from Ryou…f-for a few things we need," Yugi blushed, his eyes almost painfully turned away from the object now in Atem's possession.

"What could we possibly nee-" Atem's words tapered off as he got a good look at what Yugi had just given him.

It was amazing that even though Yugi was straining so much to look away he still managed to see enough of Atem's grin to turn a becoming shade of crimson.

"A king-sized, eh? How fitting…but I don't think we'll need this just this moment," Atem chuckled, backing away a few steps from his prey to put the bag down on the couch.

As Atem had anticipated he would, Yugi stumbled closer, compelled by curiosity and need. Just one more step and Atem could tip Yugi over onto the sea of cushions the ex-pharaoh had prepared in front of the fireplace.

"W-we won't…need it? I-I don't think I-I understand what it is you want," Yugi panted, "I-I mean you want…you _want_ to…d-don't you? A-and I mean we'll n-need to-"

"Ah but the activity which demands your _little item_," Atem pulled Yugi back in against his chest and crooned into the boy's sensitive ears, "is the apex of the evening, it is the dessert of this feast if you will. I intent to enjoy a long, long, deliciously long buffet of the other delectable portions your body before I finally let you gain that particular…satisfaction."

And as Atem had hoped, Yugi's knees finally collapsed under Atem's carefully planned seduction and it took very little manipulation to bring them both into the cushions piled on the floor.

"Aaaaatem!" Yugi wailed, arching his back wildly which in turn helped Atem to strip the boy of his sweater.

"Yes, my dear aibou, you're the one who restored that name to me, and it is fitting that you be the one to wear it ragged as you plead to whatever gods you recognize to make this whirlwind of sensation stop…to not stop…to-" Atem was heading forward full-steam and then…

It happened.

The world interrupted! Just like Atem had tried to plan against! Just like he'd been afraid it was going to despite his planning against it!

"Forget it," Yugi noted Atem's agitation and pulled the dark-one close in to his embrace. "There is such a thing as an answering machine."

As if invoked by the hikari's need –which wasn't entirely impossible since the mechanics of light-energy were still a bit of a mystery—the traditional message filled the air, bidding whatever interrupting force that was on the other end of the phone to leave their message and bugger-off.

"Yugi, Atem, I know you're there. This is Kaiba. You're friend Ryou…has been in an accident. The details are still unclear but it seems as if he has sustained a …severe injury of the type that my doctors have not had to deal with since Battle City. Being as this is YOUR area of expertise and that Bakura seems a little too distraught to provide the answers I need, it is imperative that you respond to this message as soon as you are able… …I can't handle it without your knowledge."

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

**Masaka:** ***huddled over, prepared for the assault of the fans*** I really tried to keep the chapter going but there is a significant time-break that happens here!

**Yami Masaka:** But just so you can all be at ease, Ryou isn't really hurt…I mean he IS hurt but not more than hikaris end up beaten up during any point in the series anyway. He won't even wake up mad.

**Masaka:** Shadow-magic is a terribly powerful force that both Bakura and Yami have to fight against every day. And occasionally even their best-efforts are not enough to keep accidents from happening.

**Jason:** The medical read-outs are so good even that all Yugi's friends can go back to their Christmas plans after Bakura screams at them all that he doesn't want Ryou to wake up blaming him for ruining everyone's holiday plans

**Yami Masaka:** Though I do think Honda and Serenity end up in a snowy ditch coming back to Domino because of this

**Masaka:** Which is emergency romance! The most down-and-dirty kind there is! …Er…not that I think there are many het-romance fans in this particular audience.

**Yami Masaka:** Well SCREW THEM! I like horn-head! He's a support-staff character! Jou's best-pal, the second pair of knuckles, the dude who sneaks around Pegasus's castle in a full suit of armor without breaking a sweat-

**Jason: *giving Yami Masaka a sarcastic look*** Anyway, it will all turn out alright, so just keep reading,


	8. QuickActing Christmas Haunting

**Masaka:** If anyone spots a grammar mistake please let me know

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

As far as shadow-magic assaults went, Bakura's little attack hadn't been all that terrible. Oh, it had certainly caused everyone the boy knew to freak out, but on the strictly physical level of damage it hadn't been any worse than some of the bouts of exhaustion that Yugi had caused for himself and not anything near bad enough for either Bakura or Atem to let their friends cancel their holiday plans.

In fact, when Jounouchi had merely 'hinted' at the idea of spending the night in the waiting-room, Bakura had physically grabbed Jou by his jacket-collar and threw the boy out of the hospital.

It had been Atem's suggestion that Bakura himself take a walk in the snow after that. Bakura had taken up that proposition and as far as Yugi had counted the ex-thief had been wandering out in the cold for about four hours.

There hadn't been any white-haired, frost-bitten patients admitted to the ER, however, so both Motus were content to let Bakura time to lick his wounds in isolation.

"Ryou's light-ka started to balance out the surge of shadow-ka almost immediately. I'd be completely dumbfounded if Ryou didn't wake up in time to enjoy Christmas Eve's evening at home," Atem was finishing explaining Ryou's condition to Leonardo Bakura for the third time.

It said something not altogether complimentary about the history professor's ability to accept magic as fact that in the time it had taken his other to explain Ryou's condition, Yugi had been able to phone every friend in the Millennium Item Allies' phone-tree and bring every one of them up to speed about the situation.

Strangely, however, even after spending a whole night on the phone, Yugi wasn't personally tired. He was the furthest thing from tired actually and it was rather embarrassing.

Yugi didn't know how to explain it, what words to use, to tell his other-half how much this one little accident shook him up. Yugi didn't know how to explain, without sounding unbelievable callous, how much this accident made Yugi grateful for his own other's control; how seeing Bakura all but hysterical about his light had made Yugi desperate to show Yami that their link wasn't somehow also stressed.

'_How so many couples just seem to fall into comfort-sex after something traumatic has happened is something I guess I'm not mature enough to understand just yet,' _Yugi laughed bitterly to himself.

His embarrassment must have been a little more prominent than Yugi had thought because Atem looked up from his conversation with Leonardo to catch Yugi's eye.

/Is there something wrong aibou?/

/N-Nothing…at least…nothing I want to talk about in front of HIM/ Yugi toned down his arousal by focusing on his anger towards Bakura Sr.

It was not as though Yugi didn't have his own slough of parental woes. At this moment in time Yugi's mother was probably enjoying a Christmas cocktail with her boyfriend in some quaint New York bar without a thought of her son crossing her mind. After her husband had died, Kaida Motu had completely detached herself from her life in Domino and all but abandoned her son to Solomon Motu's care.

Yugi understood how sometimes parents just weren't able to see eye-to-eye with their children. He'd come to accept what his mother was and appreciated that she had at least taken the time to assess her devotion to her family and make new arrangements when she found herself lacking rather than torture Yugi further. Yugi understood that not all parents and children were destined for an intimate relationship.

What Yugi DIDN'T understand, was how a parent could so unrepentantly ignore the differences and try to force their own standards on their children even at the cost of ruining their child's happiness.

Atem looked like he was about to agree with Yugi's anger and perhaps say a few words when a slight moan came from the hospital bed which instantly redirected everyone's attention.

"Ba…Bakura?" Ryou whimpered drowsily.

"Bakura isn't here right now Ry," Yugi said, sitting down gently beside his friend. "He said he needed to clear his head and went out for a walk. Maybe you should contact him over your link and tell him you are okay, I'm sure that will make him happy."

Ryou shook his head slightly. There was a familiar panicked look in his fellow hikari's eyes that had Yugi leaning over to offer his friend support even before Ryou rolled his face into his pillow to cry.

Atem gave Yugi a stealthy look of confusion to which Yugi responded with his own silent expression of 'Hold-On-A-Minute'.

Before Yugi could get the real story from Ryou, however, Leonardo took it upon himself to provide his own personal explanation about Ryou's troubles.

"How DARE you suggest that my son let that monster back into his mind after he was just-" Leonardo was just starting to lecture before Ryou sat up abruptly.

"SHUT THE F-K UP DAD! JUST SHUT UP! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED SO STOP ACTING LIKE YOU DO! I'M NOT F-KING MAD AT BAKURA!"

"R-Ryou!" Leonardo gasped and stumbled out of the posture of justified rage that he'd been in since they had all arrived at the hospital.

"Ryou," Yugi reached out and ran his hand in gentle circles over Ryou's back. "Ryou just calm down and explain. What are you crying about if it isn't Bakura?"

Ryou, who was usually the most pleasant and unaggressive young man to ever possess a dose of testosterone, gave Yugi a look that would have made the Egyptian Gods cringe.

"Oh there's no reason I'm crying, no real reason at all. It's not like I've once again been proven Fate's whipping boy. It's not like I even CARE that my plans are ruined!"

After throwing a cautious look over his shoulder Yugi bravely crept closer to the enraged hikari and whispered; "it's not ruined yet Ryou. There have just been a few minor upsets that you have to-"

"GODDAMN IT, STOP IT WITH THIS BULLSHIT HAPPY CHRISTMAS TRIP! IT IS RUINED OKAY! IT'S RUINED!" Ryou screamed and threw himself back under his blankets.

This was an unnecessarily harsh criticism and, though he understood it, Yugi still couldn't help but flinch in emotional pain. The littlest hikari had, after all, gone through quite a bit of turmoil to even set up his still currently progressing Christmas scheme. Yugi had thought that Ryou, of all of his floundering friends, would support what Yugi was doing.

Even though he hadn't heard what Yugi had whispered to Ryou, Atem had a strong feeling it wasn't something that deserved Ryou's anger. Before Yugi's light-ka even had a chance to flicker Atem had crossed the room and forcibly pulled the white-haired young man upright.

"Given what you've just gone through I'm not going to say anything about the shouting but, Ryou, if you have some issue with the events that transpired in your home this evening you should take it up with YOUR FAMILY and not punish YOUR FRIENDS," Atem lectured darkly at the weeping boy.

Ryou seemed slightly surprised at this lecture –having fallen into the rut of the victim expecting everyone's sympathy- but having been called out on his behavior Ryou made a small sound and obediently moved to obey the former king and address his problems correctly.

Sliding from the ex-pharaoh's grip Ryou dragged in jeans from the stack of clothing at the foot of his bed and then pulled out a small velvet box from the front pocket. Yugi, who'd known Ryou's plan from the beginning, hissed in sympathetic pain but both Atem and Leonardo just stared on in confusion.

"Fine, I'll explain but you and Yugi aren't to interrupt okay," Ryou huffed. Atem nodded in agreement then Ryou turned determinedly in the direction of his scowling father and held up the velvet box. "Do you know what this is, dad?"

"It looks like a jewelry box," Leonardo said emotionlessly.

"That's right," Ryou smiled coldly. The pale boy opened the box. Sitting inside the case on a small velvet cushion was a beautiful platinum ring decorated with a nearly black opal and a beautiful silver-white diamond, both held in place by an infinity-symbol shaped setting. The workmanship and detail were clear signs of Ryou's careful planning.

"This is th-the engagement ring that I had planned on giving Bakura at dinner. This is the reason I insisted you come home this Christmas…s-so you could be there for when I gave him this," Ryou tried to speak without emotion -the trickle of tears that began to burn down the boy's cheeks ruined the effort-"This i-is the reason I wanted you h-home, be-because I thought…after all our f-family has been through…t-that you would be happy for me."

"You…you …what?" Leonardo chocked.

"Yugi, I think we should maybe let these two have a moment," Atem was reaching his hand out to Yugi. However, Ryou chose that moment to break his own rule for the Motu boys to be only spectators to this tragedy and he grabbed Yugi's wrist before the duel prince could even move.

"H-He wouldn't run away would he? B-Bakura wouldn't…h-he wouldn't leave…right?" Ryou asked desperately.

"No, Ryou. I don't think Bakura left, I think he's just cooling off like I told you."

"C-cooling off?" Ryou laughed, "Cooling off in a blizzard? Even my Bakura i-isn't hot-head e-enough to need a BLIZZARD to cool off."

Yugi and Atem both jolted and stared disbelievingly out the window -because it hardly made sense-. Ryou had been the only one of the people in the room to even notice that it had started snowing heavily. Then again even in the midst of an emotional breakdown Ryou was still perhaps the most well grounded and practical person on the planet. He had to be to balance out a radical, by-the-seat-of-your-pants, risk-taker like Kamenwati Kul-Elna Bakura.

"Well…maybe Bakura is just a little upset with himself and …well he COULD maybe be sitting in a snow drift somewhere as some form of penance or something," Yugi tried to delicately suggest. Of course Ryou was too upset for the suggestion to come off as delicate as Yugi had wanted.

"H-He WOULD do that! Oh! Oh Yugi, I've got to do look for him!" Ryou moved to stand up. Immediately Atem, Leonardo and Yugi ALL tackled Ryou back into bed with a scream of 'NO!'

"Ryou! You just had a brush with lethally charged shadow magic! You need to stay in bed for at least the rest of the day to recover your strength!" Atem quickly scolded the boy.

"A-AND YOU SHOULD BE OFF SCREWING YUGI I-IN BLISSFUL HOLIDAY GLEE INSTEAD OF BEING IN A H-HOSPITAL TELLING ME THINGS I-I DON'T NEED TO HEAR AS MY OWN F-F-KING HOLIDAY FALLS DOWN AROUND MY EARS!" Ryou roared back so vehemently that Atem actually blushed, which in turn made Yugi blush.

"I see you two are starting to lose interest in my son's welfare," Leonardo pulled away from the hikari pile-up so he could sneer at the two Motus.

Before either star-head could really get insulted, however, Leonardo straightened out the wrinkles in his suit and pulled on his winter-coat.

"However, you two HAVE already proven yourself quite admirable what with your help and you two SHOULD be off …about your own business. I believe I can handle bringing back that –" Leonardo paused a moment to grimace with distaste, "bringing Kamenwati back to the hospital."

"You're going to go bring Bakura back?" Atem snorted in disbelief.

"I can't very well let Ryou go out in that weather to bring him back," Leonardo said as plain as unbuttered toast. "And despite how …strongly… I feel about this matter, I was raised with the manners to never ruin a celebration such as the one that had been so thoughtfully prepared as last night's dinner had apparently been intended."

The overly formal British professor gave what probably passed for a reassuring nod to his son –the only person in the room that didn't look stuck between disgusted and impressed—before walking briskly out of the room.

Yugi and Atem shared a completely surprised look while Ryou just continued to alternatively sniffle and glower at his bedspread.

"Hey, hey now," Yugi patted Ryou's wrist where the boy was still unconsciously holding Yugi's hand. "I know this is bad but come on. You've got your DAD going after BAKURA. If that isn't a sign of holiday miracles I don't know what is."

"I-It's the damn etiquette," Ryou just continued to shudder. "My dad …he's always been so…so bloody…. Even when my mother d-died he was all 'keep a stiff upper-lip' and…and 'press on my lad' and…he's so…so opposite of Bakura that I…that I feel…s-so stupid for having been caught off guard by all this. I deserved that shadow-blast to the head."

"Don't say that. Bakura was nearly catatonic when we brought you in here," Atem said sympathetically as he readjusted himself more comfortably on Ryou's bedspread.

Yugi felt his heat skip a beat as Atem's thigh brushed against his own. Again he cursed himself for wanting his yami while Ryou was in such emotional need.

Apparently he was worried for nothing, however, because in the midst of his tears Ryou began to chuckle and the white-haired boy pulled Yugi into a hug.

"Y-You are seriously too cute Yugi. E-even in the m-middle of this mess I can't help but see that. You…you really would waste an entire holiday sitting here on my bed waiting for my dad and Bakura to come back when I can tell every cell in your body wants to be home with your own dark."

"I-I-I d-don't want you to feel alone!" Yugi squeaked embarrassedly while Atem joined in with Ryou and chuckled.

"O-O-Oh god!" Ryou released Yugi and flopped bonelessly back onto his pillows. "I can't believe I look that much a mess that you refuse to leave! I mean I know this whole thing was bad but haven't we faced worse?"

"Ryou, you-" Yugi blinked curiously.

"I am in the midst of a family break-down which, to be blunt, doesn't have a thing to do with you," Ryou smiled in the way that was only possible after you've screamed and cried your eyes out and have realized it wasn't going to do any good. "Honestly I don't think I could stand to see you two sitting here with me, horny and frustrated as hell, while your own Christmas plans become as blackened as mine."

"OMAGAWD I AM NOT FRUSTRATED!" Yugi squealed and attempted to leap to his feet. Unfortunately Yugi's feet were still mostly folded underneath him so the star-head only managed to flail sideways and land –of all places—face-first in Atem's lap.

"Ryou does have a point, aibou," Atem heroically didn't blush, smirk, tease or even moan. "This is something Leonardo and Kamenwati will have to settle between themselves…and please at least try to believe I am not saying this just to encourage you to come back home with me."

"Though I'm sure you'd really like that," Ryou snickered. Again Atem heroically didn't rise to the bait though the ancient pharaoh's face did turn a becoming shade of pink.

"I-I really want to…leave…but I can't," Yugi mumbled against Atem's thigh –it was strangely easier to talk when he gave slightly into his feelings and touched his other-. "It goes against everything I've been working for to just leave you in a state like this without any help."

Just as the words came out of his mouth, however, Yugi realized there was something he could do. It would put him in debt to Kuriboh even further than he already was, but considering how involved duel-monsters were in their group's lives anyway Yugi's plan would probably help more than even he could imagine.

"It's alright Yugi," Ryou sighed and turned his head to watch the snow. "I'll just have to wait this out."

"Okay… though I'm pretty sure the wait won't be nearly as long as you fear," Yugi smiled calculatingly.

Even though Ryou had been Yugi's confidante since stage one of the plan the white-haired youth still was far too naïve regarding Yugi's elaborate planning skills. Ryou just nodded mindlessly at Yugi's encouragement and completely missed the shrewd look on the young man's face.

With a few more farewells the starhead duo prepared to depart the hospital. While Atem paid one more trip to the pay-phones to make sure everyone knew about both Ryou and Bakura's determination that their friends should not ruin their plans, Yugi snuck off into the bathroom and pulled out his favorite duel-card.

"Okay Kuri…I know you heard all that," Yugi whispered against the painted picture, "and I know that you'll be just as upset as I am if this one horrible accident ruins the game-plan we've both worked so hard to play out. So please, out of your loyalty to our pharaoh if not a love for my friends…please go and find a monster of Ryou and Bakura's deck that will be able to talk some sense into Leonardo …find someone to help heal these wounds before it ruins our day of joy."

A faint twinge in the back of his head let Yugi know Kuriboh had heard him, and the slightly excited mystic tug from his other made Yugi decide to be as resolved to victory in his own romance as he was about Ryou's.

"Well my friend," Yugi smiled at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, "let's get out of here and enjoy our Christmas Eve presents while we can."

**(A/N: **God bless me, I hate that scene! Hate it, hate it, hate it! It's way too hard to set up something sexy at the same time I'm working with serious emotional distress! BLEH! I'm with Yugi in the idea that comfort-sex is way beyond my ability to properly understand**)**

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Being thrown out on his ass by the very person he was trying to help made it pretty clear to Jounouchi that he wasn't needed. And as cold-hearted as it sounded, that information was a bit of a relief for the blonde.

Jounouchi didn't know if he could pretend to be the perfect, helpful gentleman Kira Emichō needed him to be while at the same time worrying over the well-being of one of his dearest friends. Hell, Jou wasn't sure he was going to be able to act like a gentlemen even with all his focus on the act.

It simply wasn't the blonde's style to be an uptight, straight-laced, tight-lipped sort of guy. It wasn't that he was utterly opposed to the idea, but Jou always, always, ALWAYS seemed to find something that had to be said that wasn't keeping with polite conversation. It was almost like an outspoken, empathetic disease.

"I just won't play the 'kiss-my-ass' game," Jou mentally concluded of himself as he finished pulling on his dinner jacket. "Dress me up, teach me to eat politely, I still don't mesh with the 'richer-than-thou-so-you-damn-well-should-be-impressed' crowd."

Even as he worried, Jou had to admit that meeting Kira had done wonders for his wardrobe. The lady hadn't been kidding around when she'd promised to fix Jounouchi up for a night at Domino Towers. Despite Jou's often screaming protests against what the blonde considered charity, Kira Emichō had taken her dinner-date to the fanciest boutiques and the most pretentious salons that the city had.

Under the care of these money-grubbing beauticians the "professional under-dog" had transformed into a veritable pure-breed.

With the help of a thousand-dollar stylist his hair had been made butter soft and it had been cut so that his bangs now framed his face rather than hid his eyes in a pissed-off shadow.

A slightly sadistic manicurist ,who had taken Jou's distain towards 'a girly treatment' as a personal challenge, had managed to buffer Jou's calloused and undernourished hands until they were as soft as a baby's bottom with cuticles that would make a hand-model jealous.

And another professional, who's job-description was best called simply 'face sculptor' as she'd come bearing both scissors and wax, had scrubbed Jou's face to a glowing gold so bright that the boy had to wonder whether or not his pores had been paved over by some sort of cosmetic skin-cement.

And then there was the outfit.

Jou had feared the formal dining-wear more than any other aspect of the evening because his tolerance for any tight-to-the-throat clothing was less than zero. On top of which Jou had been worried about having a 'fitted' design because all his clothes had been at least one size too big since he was seven-years-old and Jou had become acclimated to extra folds.

But Kira had found a formal jacket and pants suit that had just been destined for him to wear. Sure it had a buttoned vest underneath the jacket which added onto the restricting layers, but the tie was loose and almost flirty around the purposefully loose shirt-collar and the colors were bright enough that Joey didn't look like he was being marched into a custody hearing. With its white on gray pin-striping the suit looked almost like something from a _film noir _and it made Joey feel like much less of a geek…even with his geeky pearly-pink necktie.

**(A/N:** I refuse to give any further details because I'm just as uncomfortable with the idea of Jou in a suit as the boy is himself. I kept researching all different looks until I realized it was the JACKET that annoyed me the most…and which couldn't be left behind unfortunately**)**

"If I end up falling on my ass tonight, at least I'll do it with style," Jou smiled warmly at his reflection as he pulled his winter-coat on over the already impractical layers. Fortunately the outer coat came with a bit of holiday cheer in the form of a long red cashmere scarf which Jou wasn't hesitant about wrapping around his head.

With a quick good-bye to his pops –who looked just about as stunned at Jou's transformation as Jou himself had been—Jou strolled out the door and marched determinedly to Domino Towers.

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Taking a good long look at the woman standing on the curb through his limousine's window Kaiba Seto had to admit that if Emichō Kira had been his mother he would've been nervous too. For though the woman didn't look 'menacing' exactly there was a regality about her that made a man afraid to misbehave.

With white-blue hair tied back in a cascading series of plaits and a midnight blue dress that hugged her waistline down to the knees while also displaying just enough of the neckline to be both sensual and classy, Seto had to admit that Kira looked more like she was waiting for a date than a casual dinner with her son. If Seto had run into her under any other circumstances he wouldn't have even guessed she had a son. But Seto did know better and he quickly caught a glimpse of Emichō Akio in his completely casual fleece-down jacket leaning against the building looking miserable and alone.

"This has got to be the most stupid thing I have ever done," Seto lectured his reflection in the window before giving a nod to his driver and climbing out.

Ignoring the gasp of a nearby glam-girl and her decades older date Seto strolled masterfully over to the Emichō duo and bowed politely in greeting.

"Good evening Miss Emichō, I'm Kaiba Seto. Your son invited me to your dinner tonight, if that is agreeable to you," the CEO, renowned for his condescending manner in the business world, humbly introduced himself.

An almost amused smile –as if the woman knew exactly how much Seto was acting and she somehow adored him for it—flickered briefly on the woman's lips before disappearing.

"Thank you so much for coming Master Kaiba," Kira bowed with a great deal more respect than Seto had shown. "It means a great deal to me that you could be here for Akio…and I hope you can appreciate the humor in the fact that I too invited someone to this awkward event and hope you are willing to wait until his arrival."

Seto did actually appreciate the irony in the fact that both mother and child were alike enough to invite backup while still being so unalike they needed to bring back up at all. And so he simply nodded agreeably to the woman and walked past her to stand by Akio.

The small black-haired boy looked far happier to see him than his mother –which was understandable as well—and before Seto could even say a word Akio had his arms tightly wrapped around the brunette's waist.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for coming!" the boy purred happily as he nuzzled into Seto's stomach. "We haven't even been here five minutes and we already can't stand each other!"

"You and your mother are simply both waiting for reinforcements before either of you dares to make the first move. It not that you can't stand each other, you just can't talk to one another," Seto said encouragingly as he brushed his fingers through the boy's hair.

Perhaps he was simply picking up the smell of the wood-burning stove from the restaurant but Seto could've sworn he picked up the not unpleasant smell of ash coming from Akio.

"But we're not MEANT to get along! At least not as it is!" Akio wailed in preteen exasperation up at Seto. "It's been this way for what must have been FOREVER!"

"Tonight we'll fix it," Seto hugged his arm around Akio's shoulders in a gesture so affectionate that it was hardly recognizable from the CEO. And it was in this moment that a well-groomed version of Jounouchi Katsuya arrived and was greeted by an affection cheer and an intense embrace from Kira.

"Oh you're here! Finally! Now we can start the evening," Miss Emichō said in an explosive sigh that seemed to push her onto the toes of her periwinkle high-heels. Jounouchi gentlemanly held on until Kira could settle herself back on the ground then turned to look at the other two guests with an expression of painfully suppressed horror.

"So you're Kira's kid…aaaand Kira's kid's guest?" Jou croaked hopefully. As in Jou seemed to be hoping Seto would deny his participation in this evening's prematurely doomed festivities.

"And you're the guy my mom invited," the dark-haired boy still standing tight to Seto's side smiled with a great deal more affection than seemed due to a stranger.

"…Hello Jounouchi," Seto nodded stiffly at the blonde.

"Hiya- I mean good evening…M-Mister Kaiba," Jou seemed to fight with himself for control.

Seto was about to test the strength of that control when Akio suddenly tugged him towards the door distracting the CEO from his usual instinctive tormenting.

"Come on Seto! You're gonna sit by me at the table and if we're first to the floor then we get to decide which seats we want!" Akio cheered enthusiastically as he pulled.

So pulled Seto was only able to mutter "nice penguin suit" before turning all his attention into somehow matching Akio's much shorter strides before either of them fell over.

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Jou and Kira didn't follow the pair into the restaurant directly. In fact Jounouchi made it a point to throw his arms in front of the rotating door so that Kira couldn't immediately follow and avoid talking to him about this.

"Kira…I-I can't do this. I'm sorry for the waste and I'm sorry about abandonin' you when you need me but I CAN'T do this!" Jou hissed sharply to the icy-blonde.

Kira looked surprised but she elegantly led Jou out of the doorway before she began her questions.

"What has gotten into you, Katsuya?" Kira pouted her delicately painted pink lips. "You've been nothing if not obliging to my measures during this entire week and yet NOW when all that tutoring is about to pay off-"

"You don't understand!" Jou wheezed more desperately. "You just don't understand! I CAN'T eat DINNER in THIS RESTAURANT with SETO KAIBA!"

"What on earth is that supposed to mean? You can't? What do you mean 'can't'? Your arms haven't fallen off, have they? You haven't suddenly lost the ability to eat, have you?"

"Kira…this…this guy that your son invited he's…he's…" Jou tried again.

"He seems perfectly agreeable to me, I mean just look at the way he interacts with Akio," Kira wavered her manicured hand at the window behind Jou. The blonde turned reluctantly to look though his instincts were still screaming at him to run away.

In the lobby of the building –which was actually not the same lobby as the restaurant but rather the general lobby for the entirety of Domino Towers—Kaiba had knelt down to help the little boy he was accompanying peel out of his winter jacket and was also trying to get the boy to hold still long enough for Kaiba to straighten the boy's cheery red dress-shirt. The motions of the CEO's hands and the relaxed arrangement of the muscles on the CEO's face were all so unfamiliar that for a moment Jou wondered if he was perhaps looking at another Kaiba Seto.

But that penguin suit dig at the door had definitely been personal. After all, Jou had gotten grief about that zoo job for months until he'd made the mistake to ask Seto out and caused the two to start studiously ignoring each other.

"It will be fine," Kira's voice caught Jounouchi by surprise and caused him to whirl back around in a guilty panic. Not that he really had anything to feel guilty about, but Kaiba had just seemed so…so sweet that it had felt like Jou was spying.

"Whatever it is that you have against this boy, or that he has against you…I trust that you two will put my son and myself ahead of that problem. I don't believe either of you would be here tonight if you weren't so compassionate. It is Christmas Eve after all," Kira smiled knowingly.

Jou blushed and privately wished he had never stuck his nose into his little sister's date and gotten himself pulled into all this mess.

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Ironically at the same time Jounouchi was wishing he'd kept out of it, Honda Hirito was internally cheering the sudden change of plan. In return for hijacking an admittedly cliché romantic date Mokuba had provided Honda with a fully tricked-out limo to drive Serenity and himself to the family cabin where,- according to their last call from the little schemer-, Mokuba had sent a team from his staff to repair, redecorate and generally 'spruce up' for the purposes of this evening.

Aside from some troubling news about Ryou –which he'd been reassured really was nothing—Honda was having the time of his LIFE…

Until, suddenly, three of the limo's tires exploded and the vehicle swerved into a snowy ditch.

"DAMN IT!" Honda and Serenity swore and fell to the floor of the limo at the exact same moment. Serenity blushed at her language while Honda more practically crawled up to the partition to check on the driver.

The hulking Eurasian behind the wheel momentarily looked embarrassed –he didn't look like the type for whom things went awry as often as they did for Honda—before barking at the teenagers to stay put while he went to get help.

"Where are you going to go? We're halfway up a mountainside!" Honda yelled at the driver.

The large man just glowered impressively at him before kicking –literally kicking—his door open and trudging off into the snow.

Honda watching after the behemoth for an unbelieving moment then groaned heavily and joined Serenity back into the passenger section of the vehicle.

"I bet you're starting to think I'm a jinx aren't you?" Honda smiled nervously at his girlfriend.

With a laugh that would've made angels cheer Serenity shook her head and cuddled sweetly into Honda's side.

"Oh I wouldn't call you a jinx…the only person in our group of friends who doesn't seem to have the luck of an ancient god MAYBE…but not a jinx," Serenity reassured him.

While Honda wanted to believe her, the overly dramatic adolescent side of him kept screaming that it couldn't be this easy. It hissed that there was no WAY that Serenity could be doing anything other than secretly wishing she was with Otogi right now instead of sitting in the passenger seat of yet another runaway date.

"I promise that I'll make better plans for our next big date! I mean the New Year will be here soon and I'm SURE that I can come up with something that-"

"Honda…don't you have a good time with me?" Serenity interrupted Honda's angst with her most timid tone.

"Of course I have a good time with you! You're great fun to be around! You're not COMPLETELY duel crazy like everyone else in Domino –though you are certainly the best cheerleader our little group had ever had—you're brave and graceful enough to outshine girls like Mai Valentine without even knowing it but you're still real enough with yourself that you don't feel any shame at eating four boxed lunches from a train-stop vendor! You're the greatest girl ever, Sere!" Honda rattled off with perhaps a little too enthusiasm.

Serenity jolted slightly at Honda's sudden passionate declaration but after he finished talking Serenity's gloom slid right back into place and she asked; "then why are you spending so much energy finding a place for us to GO and things for us to DO rather than just spending time with me wherever we happen to be."

"…You think that I've been making elaborate dates …because I DON'T want to hang out with you?" Honda stared disbelievingly at the redhead.

Rather like her brother when Serenity got upset it was easy to see. Actually on Serenity it was even easier to see because, like most redheads, when Serenity blushed her entire face turned pink.

"Oh! Oh nooo! I-I didn't mean it like that! I mean I was so excited for the dinner and w-when we had to give that up I…I was okay with it because it was you but you were so obsessed with getting this cabin but…and you don't understand what I mean do you?" Serenity hid her face behind her hands in a move that was just so terribly endearing that Honda couldn't do anything else but pull the girl to his chest in a tight hug.

"Well I certainly feel better now! I always thought I was the only panicky one in our relationship but I guess I freak you out as much as you freak me out!" Honda laughed warmly.

Serenity peeked nervously over her fingertips at Honda and upon recognizing that her boyfriend wasn't laughing AT her but rather at them BOTH she dropped her hands and began laughing as well.

"T-This was so stupid! W-we could've been watching movies in front o-of a warm firm instead of fr-freezing in the back of Kaiba stupid limo if w-we'd just TALKED about things instead of ASSUMING we wanted t-these stupid elaborate dates!" Honda wheezed breathlessly.

"A-And h-how stupid is it that w-we both thought the other one w-would be DISAPPOINTED i-if we DIDN'T plan this s-stupid trip! L-Like we haven't already told e-each other how w-we felt! L-like I di-didn't know you were s-so happy w-when I b-brushed off Otogi a-and p-pretty much flaunted to the w-whole school that we were dating," Serenity howled right alongside him.

The couple just laughed and laughed and laughed until eventually the limo-driver returned with a tow-truck.

"The snow is pretty thick but we should be able to muscle through," the driver shrugged at the duo.

"Forget it," Serenity smiled charmingly up at the man. "We're happy you took time out of your holiday schedule to do this but all we want is to go back home."

Though neither of the teenagers would know it, -nor would Yugi who had arranged the blow-out as part of his 'plan'-, by so obligingly returning to Domino Seto's driver was able to get home in time for his family's traditional Christmas Eve tree-lighting and by being there was able to smooth things over with his wife and save his marriage.

**(A/N:** I don't care if I'm alone in this but I like Serenity and Honda as a couple. It's like…they remind me of Jessica and Hoyt from _True Blood_ …except Serenity isn't quite so hormonal)

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

In the dark of the Shadow Realm, whizzing along at a speed that was actually quite frightening, Kuriboh was on the hunt for one of Ryou or Bakura's allied monsters who would be willing to help…and who wouldn't try to devour Kuriboh's soul.

Given that Bakura had a natural affinity for the dead –which was a result of his dark childhood rather than a purposeful hunt for dark energy like most assumed—most of Bakura's deck were some form of zombie and were far too content with sitting around in a shallow grave to help.

But Kuriboh was actually quite the clever furball and instead of turning away the little monster flew deeper into the darkness until he found a sullen being sitting on what appeared to be the literal EDGE of the night.

Doma the Angel of Silence wasn't actually a mute. Doma was simply the bearer of The Silence. Sometimes that silence was sinister, such as the silence of the grave, and on other occasions the silence was peaceful such as the often sung Silent Night.

After Kuriboh wheezed out a quick explanation as to what was happening with the angel's master and what Kuriboh's own master was hoping to accomplish Doma simply smiled and agreed to help.

"You needn't worry about my cost, little one," Doma spoke before Kuriboh could nervously begin the process of favor bargaining. "This Eve there are many spirits amok and if they have not demanded payment then neither shall I. Besides which my passage to the mortal world this night will come at no cost. I will move in the silence that the snow brings."

And before Kuriboh could utter another 'kree' the angel slid sideways through the folds of the Shadows and disappeared into the mortal realm.

"_Kree Kree…boooooo riiii" _the fuzz-ball shuddered aloud before he turned and zoomed back towards the more familiar territory of the shadow realm where he was hoping Dark Magician hadn't closed his Spy Spell on their masters so that all the monsters could watch the Christmas Conspiracy unfold.

_** translation: That monster is so…creepy brrr. _

_***note on translation: There is still some debate on the meaning of 'riiiii' and it is entirely possible that instead of 'brr' Kuriboh could have said something entirely uncomplimentary about Doma or Doma's mother_

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Back in the mortal world of uncomfortable dinner dates and unexpected appearances from rivals Kaiba Seto was beginning to worry that his presence had somehow cursed this evening.

He was almost certain that if it wasn't for him that Jounouchi would've already been able to figure out some gimmick that was radical but strangely appropriate that would have made Kira and Akio realize how much they meant to each other. And that if Seto weren't there then Jounouchi's gimmick would have somehow lifted up the spirits of everyone in the restaurant through the small family's cheer and everything would be as cheerful as the promise of the holidays always should be but usually weren't.

…Or maybe Seto was just feeling slightly hysterical because he was sitting across from the man he unintentionally insulted every time they met. The same young man who had managed to clean himself up to such a level of masculine beauty that it made Seto want to get very drunk very soon before he did something stupid like try to TOUCH the blonde.

"So Akio," Seto dove towards his table companion in an attempt to avoid thinking about any sort of touching, "this is a pretty nice restaurant for your mother to have picked, isn't it?"

"…It's okay," Akio shrugged and stared at his place-setting.

"Okay?" Jou surprisingly spoke from his agonizingly close seat DIRECTLY ACROSS from Seto. "Kiddo, I understand your issues but you've gotta admit these digs are sweeeet!"

Akio's head shot up in shock and he pinned Jou with a look of such utter disbelief that Jou immediately assumed the worst and clapped a hand over his mouth.

Seto personally found Jou's casual conversation skills a relief. Then again he wasn't the one who'd come in on the arm of a clearly older and obviously far too manipulative older woman who was probably horrified at Jounouchi's uncouth behavior.

…Not that Seto was worried about Jounouchi dating Emichō's or anything. Not that he was even sure they were really 'dating'. …Though really what else was the CEO supposed to think. Not that Jounouchi really had any reason to care what Seto thought…except that it was the BLONDE who'd confessed to HIM!

…Gods above, Seto was really feeling like a pre-teenage girl.

"I…believe Katsuya termed that perfect…this restaurant is…s-sweeeet," Kira blushed as she repeated Jou's elongated pronunciation with a great deal of embarrassment.

Seto didn't notice how the effort made Akio smile. His focus was entirely on the fact that this woman had called his mutt "Katsuya". Nobody called Jounouchi "Katsuya." Seto had tried and gotten his ass kicked.

"Yah well…I guess it's kinda obvious that I'm new to this whole high-society stuff," Jou smiled thankfully at the much, much older woman. "She tried to train me but…I guess my tongue just can't be tamed."

"I don't mind," Akio said warmly, almost defensively. "I don't think it makes sense when people are formal all the time."

"Neither do I," Jou groaned with a purposefully teasing note of exaggeration. "I mean the way some people are soooo proper. It kinda makes me think they gotta be hiding a helluva lot of nastiness behind their fake grins."

"Yah, I think so too! A helluva lot," Akio seemed to enjoy the opportunity to let loose even the mildest of cuss words.

"…Not all formality is hiding an ill temper," Kira said embarrassedly. She looked at Seto pleadingly and in a sudden rush the CEO embarrassingly had to remind himself that Kira probably WAS more interested in her son than playing footsie with an under-aged blonde. Even if that blonde was someone as beautiful as Katsuya.

"No, of course not. Formality of speech is just another mechanism used by people who wish to control the way the world sees them," Seto offered in the icy-hued woman's defense.

"Buuuuuullshit!" Jou said in a voice low enough that he didn't scandalize the neighboring table but still managed to make Akio laugh.

"You-" Seto hissed.

"If a guy wanted to show REAL emotion…if a guy HAD real emotion…he wouldn't give a damn what the world saw particularly because…because he'd know that if he was involved in a conversation of real passion…t-then the other person wouldn't be hiding their passion either and…" Jou interrupted his own tear-hued speech with a slight cough then he straightened his posture until Seto could almost hear the boy's spine crying.

"Katsuya…are you alright?" Kira asked, gently putting a hand on the blonde's shoulder.

"Uh…ya. Ya, I'm fine," Jou smiled and nodded too eagerly. "Of course I'm alright. I was just…thinking of a stupid thing that doesn't matter and doesn't have ANYTHING to do with tonight."

"…You lie terribly," Kira frowned.

"Yah, you should be more like my mom and keep a stony face when you lie," Akio snorted.

Immediately Kira's attention flew from Jounouchi to her son which, if Seto didn't mistake Akio's smirk, was exactly what the boy had hoped to accomplish.

"When have I ever lied to you!" the woman yelped.

"You lie all the time. 'Oh I'm so happy to have you for Christmas.' 'I love you so much.' 'No I don't love my job more than I love you'," Akio repeated in a mockery of the woman's voice.

"I-I can't believe…you would think," Kira's eyes started to fill with tears.

"Oh yah, that's another good trick to learn. Fake tears are a REAL good way to convince people that you care," Akio snarled darkly.

"I am not lying to you!" Kira began to weep harder.

"Yah right like I'm really supposed to- WHAT THE HELL!" Akio's words were suddenly cut off by Seto's rather ungentlemanly act of dumping an entire pitcher of ice-water over the boy's head.

Silence filled not only their table but all the surrounding tables. People that Seto had business dealings with were looking up from their lobster and steak fillets. Their dates all swelled with the excitement that meant they were just bursting to begin gossiping about the young CEO so obviously losing his mind.

Seto ignored them all.

"Akio, what are you doing here tonight?" Seto asked the now dripping boy.

"I-I-I was…me-meeting with-"

"You told me you were worried about your mother not loving you and you worried about this entire evening being a ruse. But instead of facing up to these worries you've behaved like a child and insulted this woman. You insulted her and degraded her while she was obviously trying to bare her soul because you obviously thought that by doing so you might insulate yourself from whatever damage she could do to you."

Seto leaned down so that his face was only an inch or two from the young boy's face. Akio seemed too startled to react and his cinnamon colored eyes seemed lost.

"But let me tell you a secret about this kind of defense," Seto hissed to the boy, totally unable to stop despite his intellect screaming at him to shut up and stop making such a spectacle of himself in front of people HE COULDN'T PAY OFF. "You see when you attack the person you care for when they are most vulnerable to it…you hurt them. You hurt them so much that they never speak to you again. They turn their backs on you and find out another person to give their affections to…and the worst part is that you will live the rest of your life with the guilt that YOU were the one who caused it…because YOU were the one who stop loving that person first…and started loving your pride more."

That last syllable spilled off Seto's tongue so softly it was also a sob. And while that sob was still ringing in the silence Seto turned his head ever so slightly towards Katsuya.

Not surprisingly Katsuya did not react well to this. The blonde's eyes flickered with pain and he jerked backwards as if Seto had thrown a punch at him.

"Kat-" Seto started to speak when the blonde finally seemed to have enough and he jumped up from his seat and ran towards the elevators.

Like Cinderella leaving the ball all the magic of the night seemed to break at Jounouchi's exit and the room was suddenly alive with the all too real and all too destructive sound of gossip.

"My god what have I done," Seto groaned and flopped back into his seat.

"…You…you're going to let him go?" Akio whimpered causing Seto to lift his head from his hands and look at the boy he'd supposedly traumatized.

"Akio, you-" Seto blinked in surprise at the boy's easy forgiveness.

"Y-you j-just…y-you just told that guy…how you crushed your own heart…and instead of making him answer you, you let him leave!" Akio gapped in horror.

"I don't think he-"

"Don't think," Kira smiled from across the table. "I have a feeling you are quite like me in that you've probably gotten into this much trouble because you think so much. Instead you should simply go to him and let your heart do what it's wanted to do for a long time now."

"Do what?" Seto asked helplessly.

"Love him."

Before he realized what he was doing Seto was up on his feet and running after the blonde.

Behind him, still at the table, Akio's features melted slightly into those of a much more mature being and the boy let a slightly thunderous grunt of disgust leave his lips.

"What is wrong, my love. Our masters seem to be moments away from becoming a couple thus freeing us to be openly together as we've always wished," Kira smiled with a heat that would be entirely inappropriate for a parent to direct towards her child.

"It's not that. I'm actually really glad we found an excuse to come up here and knock those two knucklehead together," Akio rumbled in a totally adult voice that made the waiter passing them do a double-take.

"Then what is the matter, my dearest red-eyes?" Kira smiled indulgently.

"…Because of this stupid disguise I'm not allowed to kiss you or anything without panicking the mortals into called Child Protective Services," Akio pouted and blushed becomingly.

Kira tossed back her head and let out a rather thunderous chuckle of her own before reaching over the table and giving Akio's cheek an affectionate pinch.

"Oh my dearest, you are truly a wicked thing aren't you. Don't pout over an evening's restraint when you know very well I will make up for every minute that I was out of your masterful presence. Now stop slumping in your chair or I will refuse to give the waiter my French accent which will trick the mortals into assuming we are from different cultural understanding that allows you to at least have a small cup of wine with your dinner."

"…I do like wine," Akio straightened in his seat and smiled.

**(A/N:** Red Eyes Black Dragon and Blue Eyes White Dragon. That's who they are and that's why they are allowed to flirt. Do NOT give me ANY GRIEF for this!**)**

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho**

Leonardo was rather disgusted with himself.

He'd spent the last several days doing everything shy of brandishing a pistol at the dark spirit to try and break up the romance between his son and that degenerate sod most recently named Bakura. (**A/N:** Kamenwati is one of the many names the spirit of the ring held, but it's not technically his birth-name. It is, however, more convenient for these inter-family arguments)

Yet at the first sign of his son's tears –well maybe not the first—Leo had utterly recanted his disapproval and had agreed to bring the filth back from whatever hole he'd hidden himself.

"I have finally, irrefutably, lost my mind," the linguist muttered to himself as he plunged onward through the snowy streets. "I've spent so much time around dottering old maniacs like Solomon Motu and Arthur Hawkins that I've completely gone off my gourd."

Even as those words come out of his mouth, however, Leonardo Bakura regretted them. While Solomon suffered from an EXCEEDING amount of personality, the old man was truly as jolly a soul as Saint Nick.

And Arthur was a genius whose academic confidence in the face of years of skepticism had made Leo feel ashamed of his own hesitancy.

Solomon and Arthur were both fine fellows, except that they didn't understand how dangerous all this was. Magic and monsters and ancient spirits who wouldn't know decency if they were impaled on it.

The real world had enough traumatic things within it without adding in all this chaotic fantasy nonsense. There were real threats that already caused so much pain and tore apart so many families without the added stress of shadow games.

"We'd all be better off in a world without magic!" Leonardo yelled out to the building storm.

"Oh my love, what a cynical thing to say," a painfully familiar voice replied from just behind him.

A moment of silence passed over the silent snow-filled streets as Leonardo came to a startled stand still.

A prickle of panic as well as fearful joy swept down the linguist's spine and made his muscles freeze and lock in place. He wanted to turn around so badly and yet he was also dreading what he might see.

"M-Miria?" the widower hesitantly called out in response to the sound of his long dead spouse's voice.

No answer came to his ears but just as Leonardo was about to start berating himself for giving into the magical-nonsense of his colleges, a soft and surprisingly warm hand reached out and took his.

"H-How is this …w-why?" Leo chocked back a sudden rush of tears.

"Because our son is connected to a great many powers and only a portion of them are what you'd call evil," Miria's voice rang in Leo's ears like a chorus of silver bells. "Oh my dearest, your fear of the unknown has made you fall so far from the image of the man I married."

A strange, unexpected tendril of anger melted Leonardo's shock and made him grip his former wife's hand with bruising force.

"In what way am I not the man you married?"

"Don't get angry, my love. I've travelled too far to be met with this level of pettishness," Miria's sweet voice sighed in exhaustion.

Leonardo weakened but did not release his hold on Miria's hand. For some strange reason he continued to feel unable to turn around despite the fact that he no longer felt afraid.

Perhaps this was all part of whatever magic that had brought her to him. Like Orpheus and his Eurydice there must have been some power that tried to push past the mere glory of the bodily senses.

"My love…it's all been so wrong since I lost you," Leonardo hissed almost bitterly to his wife.

He'd never allowed himself to say these words before, nor allowed the idea to interfere with his work. But this strange twilight visitation seemed to free Leo's tongue of the secrets his pride usually kept in hold.

"I know; from …well from the place I've been I could see you and our Ryou struggling. Amane and I have been so worried about you both."

"Y-You've seen Amane? She's with you?" Leonardo gulped painfully over a sudden knot in his throat. Even more so than Miria, Leonardo had not allowed himself to dwell on thoughts of his lost daughter.

He was often barely able to look at Ryou without imagining what Amane would look like if she was his age. If his wife had brought along the girl then Leo was suddenly afraid his soul would break.

"I am not here to tell you about our daughter. What you should hear is that she is as eager as I am for the success of my mission tonight, and I am here on a mission my love. Only Jacob Marley might resemble my burden in the urgency I feel for you to hear me and act on what I say. We don't have time for three haunting, my dearest."

"Speak and I'll act. I always listened to you," Leonardo squeezed Miria's ghostly hand as reassuringly as possible.

"You must stop trying to force Kamenwati of the Ring and our Ryou apart. My love, I know you fear the magic Kamenwati holds but whether or not you like it that magic will continue to be a part of our son's life for as long as he lives."

"No! I know that our son is special. I may have been neglectful but I HAVE noticed things. Ryou has the ability to bring light and warmth to anyone or anything he touches: his paintings, that ill-used house that he lives in, even his friends radiate with that light. I respect his power and I only want it to flourish…for Ryou to flourish!" Leonardo snarled and ran a frustrated hand through his midnight blue hair.

"So you'd condemn him to stand alone in this power you so admire? My love, that is juvenile. Ryou needs Kamenwati's guidance! The ancient spirit has made many terrible mistakes that-"

"He'll lead Ryou to make those same mistakes!"

Suddenly Miria's hand was ripped out of his and Leonardo felt his wife's knuckles strike him smartly in the back of the head.

"You didn't let me finish! You said you'd listen and act upon my word, so do it! If not I swear I'll avoid you in the afterlife! I'll avoid you in the next life after that too! How would you like heaven then? Being alone? You cringing, cheating—"

Leonardo had forgotten this aspect of his beloved spouse. Miria hadn't ever been a violent woman but when Leo had argued with her –as all husbands inevitably argued with their wives—she had been a whirlwind of passion. If she was convinced that Leo was in the wrong then nothing on earth would make her agree to his actions.

Often after such an argument Leo would feel like a sinner who'd gotten his arse kicked by a sword-wielding cherub. He'd feel so bad that he would abandon whatever idea it'd been that Miria had so disliked no matter how much he might disagree to her assessment of its damnable qualities.

He'd never been able to stand Miria's tears even more so than how Ryou's tears affect him and…

Leonardo felt another shiver run down his spine at the realization.

"Let me finish won't you? I'm saying that our son NEEDS Kamenwati! He'll never know how strong his life can be without wrestling with darkness. He—"

"He can't influence Kamenwati's darkness and direct it in a pure direction if I keep interfering, is that it? You're trying to tell me …that the sod and I…that we're the same in that way," Leonardo interrupted his wife again, but hopefully with words she wanted to hear.

He tugged at her hand to try to pull her fingers to his lips to kiss but for a disheartening moment Miria's arm was as unmoving as marble.

He then heard a slight gasp and her limbs lost their righteous tension and allowed Leonardo to lay down the small repentant kisses he'd desired to give.

"You…you realize it? Openly? It got through without me having to bring up your shared vulnerability to the loss of family, your same grumpy habit of shouldering your burdens alone and damning the world, or your shared—"

"Listen, my love, I'm having enough trouble recognizing this as it appears in my mind now; you shouldn't go rubbing salt in the wounds while they're still red," Leo snarled bitterly.

"—genius? I was going to say your shared genius," Miria's last comparison slipped out anyway. And as horrifyingly improper and immature as it may seem, Leonardo's heart still skipped a beat to hear his wife's praise. Years of separation had not changed the way Leo reacted to her.

The distance had allowed Leo to forget Miria's exact responses had allowed him to slip back into being the horrible hard-hearted person that he'd been before Miria's light had entered his life.

(**A/N: **Hah! Years wasted trying to figure this scene out and all I had to do was show how similar Leo and Kura are at heart. Stupid British formality made it impossible for me to see until I got his wife in on this redemption scene)

Leo self-consciously straightened the wrinkles out of his suit in an attempt to compose himself and he forced his face into a neutral but respectfully aware expression.

"I…I still do not approve of Kamenwati being as…amorous a person as he is…"

"I said that you and Kamenwati are similar, not that you are the same. That you even kissed my fingers in the open like you did was more than I ever expected," Miria laughed and laced her fingers through Leo's once again. "You'll simply have to remind yourself that Kamenwati has a unique perspective of the societies of the world and that it has left him little patience for the behavioral morals that you so devotedly retain. To him it's all a thin veil used to pretty up the biases of any social structure."

The warmth in Miria's voice as she explained Kamenwati's behavior reminded Leonardo painfully of how she'd explain away their children's childish antics when Leo had been on the edge of tossing them over his knee in frustration.

"I'll…I'll try and see if we can't reach a mutual agreement on…on how much both of us veil or don't veil our behavior," Leo coughed, feeling strangely like he was promising to take a student under his wing at the university. "But…well…"

"You are still uncomfortable with Kamenwati being a man?" Miria said with a strange tone to her voice that Leo could not identity.

"Well I am not THAT prudish that I'll stand here defending Victorian practices to the ghost of my wife who remembers a few violations to the 'natural relationship order' that we indulged in ourselves; nor am I a close-minded religious fanatic –my dissertations often make fun of the church—but I believe a man is truly wasting his life when he ignore the vital business of building a family! I don't know, maybe that is a little Victorian of me after all but man is not immortal –despite Kamenwati's prolonged life—and I just don't think—"

"My dearest."

"Oh God, I know I'm rambling like a girl but I'm only trying to explain my feelings substantively rather than brutishly saying 'I hate this pairing because they're both men' and thereby make you worry that I'm still going to cause our son harm and—"

"MY LOVE!" Miria shouted so loud that Leonardo had to stop. "Please beloved, just …stop talking…and turn around."

The paralysis that had held Leonardo before must have been awe because now that Leo no longer thought of his wife as a divine phantom he found that facing her was the most natural thing in the world.

Miria Bakura had died a rather traumatic death under the tire of a drunken driver but such physical damage hadn't carried over to her soul. Even the slight imperfections of age, such as the minor weight about the middle that all women gained from child-bearing or the circles under her eyes from the strain of keeping their family organized, none of them had carried over.

Miria looked as she did only in Leonardo's mind, beautiful, warm and radiantly lit with inner light. The only big difference that Leo noted was that Miria was wearing a veil over her hair which was so long that the garment's hem should've been wet with melting snow.

"Another Dickenson metaphor, my dearest?" Leo reached out and lifted the veil slightly away from Miria's body. Miria only smiled and looked down at the little figure that she held in her arms that had been hidden under the dropping fabric.

"M-My sweet, merciful—" Leo chocked. "Is this, could he…but that cannot be!"

"There are no absolutes, my love," Miria tugged the veil shut as if concerned that the ghost infant in her arms might catch cold. "This child is a shadow of such possibilities that argue the positivity of magic. I was allowed to bring her in case I needed to argue this far against your fear of the unknown. I suppose her presence can work just as well to argue Kamenwati's potential as a family-builder."

"So…they will…" Leo blushed with hope.

"They could, they might or they could do as other young men do and build a clan out of the souls who have already settled for a duration on the earth and seek friendship's hand. The potential is theirs and theirs alone to decide and if you push them I WILL be cross."

"I…I won't. I won't even mention her," Leo felt strangely certain of his promise. "Only…only if she is …if our Ryou and his Kamenwati do agree…what is her name?

"Just consider her our little Miracle," Miria smiled and peacefully began to fade.

"So soon!" Leo yelped.

"It's only for a while, dearest. Eternity is much longer still. Spend your time on this earth expanding upon your passions so that you have adventures to dazzle me with when we are together again…so that I may fall in love with you all over again," Miria smiled sadly as she too seemed to wilt with the idea of being separated.

"Adventures…a tall order that," Leo thought fondly of the old adventurers already in his life, towards whom he felt a little more understanding.

"You can do it, you are so much more than what you've tried to be. Now go, start your return by reconciling with Kamenwati. You'll find him beside the lake in the park," Miria spoke quickly as her disappearance began to truly take hold.

"I will, my dearest! I love you!" Leo sprang into motion.

"And I you…my dearest other-half."

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

(**A/N: **Triumph! You all have no idea how hard this man is to work with! I threw so many ghosts at him and still I didn't get any reaction out of the damn half-Brit bastard! It wasn't until Miss Bakura kindly tapped me on the shoulder and asked for a word with her hubbie that this all came together! WHY IS THE BAKURA FAMILY SO DIFFICULT!)

If this had been a romance novel –after the fashion of those trashy rags that Seto had stolen out of his secretary's desk to annoy her and inadvertently began to enjoy himself—then Seto would've caught up to Jounouchi, he would've pulled the reluctant blonde into a passionate kiss and would've said some overly cliché little speech about having always loved the boy that would have made Jou melt and agree to ditch the remainder of dinner to spend the rest of the evening in the much cozier accommodations of Kaiba Manor…or the nearest love-hotel depending on how cozy Jou wanted to be.

That was not what happened.

What Seto hadn't counted on when he'd decided to run after Jounouchi was that the blonde was a helluva runner. Seto had heard Yugi-tachi calling Jou 'the golden blue' on occasion but he'd never really studied just how fleet of foot the blonde could really be.

Generally when Jou ran away it was because Seto had pushed him to that point. And even then Seto had never been doubtful that Jou would come and find him again.

After the heart-wrenching look he'd seen back in the restaurant, however, Seto wasn't willing to risk waiting for another chance.

Jou had run at least a whole floor's worth of stairs ahead of him during the entire frantic chase down to street-level. Because of this Seto was worried that he'd lose the blonde in the crowd of pedestrians still milling around outside Domino Towers and so Seto idiotically threw more speed into his limbs than one should ever give in a mid-winter chase.

And because Murphy's Law had waited a long time for Seto to do something even slightly impulsive the CEO had not noticed the patch of icy sidewalk until he was sliding out of control into a nearby light-pole.

This sudden injury, combine with his nerves and the not inconsiderable physical exertion he'd already put forth, caused Seto's already migraine-prone head to start pulsing with agony. The pain was so intense, in fact, that Seto stumbled off the curb and into the street where he would've been flattened- ironically by a delivery truck from his own company—had not Jounouchi come flying out of nowhere like a knight in cashmere armor to haul Seto out of harm's way.

After landing uncomfortable on the sidewalk the two teenagers just lie huffing and wheezing for a moment and Seto internally prepared himself for Jou's impending lecture about how Seto should have accepted his lose with more grace and avoid taking his rage out on traffic.

"Y-you…f-f-king…clutz," Jou wheezed from underneath Seto.

(**A/N: **Calm down you drooling fangirls, Seto is simply sprawled over Jou's legs)

"Yah," Seto accepted the insult without a fight.

"You f-king MORON!" Jou yelled a little louder, obviously liking Seto's atypical submissiveness.

"Agreed," Seto grimaced as his head began to throb anew.

"You…you f-king…goddamn…adorable mess."

"Agre- wait, what?" Seto pushed himself up onto his elbows without regard to his returning nauseated pain so he could look up at the now hysterically giggling Jounouchi Katsuya.

"O-Oh God, I-I d-didn't want t-to forgive you. Not a-after the w-way you h-humiliated me a-at the shop a-and the way you s-snubbed me at the door t-tonight," Jou was practically weeping with giddiness. "S-so w-when you said…what you said…I-I just wanted to…I c-couldn't...a-and then you had to be so damn cute tripping over your own stupid feet like a damn girl in her fist pair of heels!"

Seto's first reaction was to push Jou away and salvage his wounded pride. However, as Seto was a genius and he had been paying attention to the events leading up to this evening, the CEO quickly reigned in his embarrassment and argued to himself how much better this turn of events was compared to some ridiculous assumption based off dime-story novellas. If Seto was in the helpless position this time then Jou had the chance to improve his self-image and thus be less sensitive to Seto's barbs. And if Jou was less sensitive then Seto didn't have to pull a damn miracle out from his sleeve that would allow him to just swallow a decade's worth of bastardly instincts.

By being in the helpless position Seto opened up the possibility of at least gaining a pity-date.

"Thank you for saving me," Seto said graciously.

"No problem," Jou wheezed in reply. Despite Seto's stern mental arguments it still made Seto feel better to note that Jou had stopped laughing.

A moment of silence passed between the two until Jou hesitantly asked, "So…you like me?"

"I do, I'm just a jackass about it."

"Yah well I'm not exactly Mr. Romance myself."

Another moment of silence passed as the two teens awkwardly regained their feet and Jou virtuously led Seto back into the lobby to sit down before his slight migraine became a full-blow, vomit-inclusive brain seizure.

The two shared passing anxious looks before Jou, in typical Jou fashion, muttered a soft 'what the hell' and pulled Seto into a hot, sloppy, long-time-coming kiss.

And while Seto couldn't imagine a worse consolation for his pounding head, he had to admit that the kiss was still quite novel-worthy.

**CHAPTEREND**

**Masaka: *looking at overheated hands* **Ouch, I wasn't even typing that long this time and still…ooouch

**Yami Masaka:** The muses demand pain, my love. But at least you're out of the plot-rut.

**Jason: **And you have the next chapter ready in the wings!... well mostly.

**Masaka: **I think I'll take a break for a soda…but I have the most wonderful feeling that THIS is the year that the story is finished and I can move onto my other project!

**Jason: **Leeeeet's just keep our focus on this one, alright?


	9. AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

**Masaka: **I will finish this story by Christmas! If ONLY this story by Christmas! I will finish this story by Christmas

**Yami Masaka and Jason: **So start writing already!

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

Kamenwati found it slightly ironic that he'd ended up huddled underneath the roof of Domino Park's nativity scene. It was better than hiding in a church, he supposed. Not that he had anything against churches persay –particularly not one as inoffensive as the little chapel that was nestled amongst the trees in Domino Park in a desperate attempt to parallel the churches in New York's Central Park—but as a figure of ageless mystic-power Kamenwati hadn't had a very good history with churches either.

In a life-time many life-times before Ryou's grandparents had even been born, the Millennium Ring had come to the possession of a young English Crusader. The boy's spirit hadn't been particularly engaging so Kamenwati had thought it fun to plague the poor man's soul with 'heretical' thoughts of abandoning the quest to reclaim God's city. He certainly hadn't expected the man to go so hysterical that he begged his fellow pilgrims to slay him rather than let him return unfulfilled to England.

…Then again Kamenwati had never expected his hosts to do HALF the things they usually ended up doing. Alexander the Great was another example of a little nudging gone too far…Elizabeth Borden was another…Edgar Allen Poe…

Now that he really thought about it Kamenwati had been having a bad effect on people since the very beginning when he'd been taken in his very first host, a child of the pharaoh's body. It had been that meek soul who had given Kamenwati his new name.

The Thief King's true birth-name had been devoured by Zorc Necrophilius. It had been the loss of that name that had made Kamenwati so certain that he was condemned…so certain until he'd gained another name…and heard it ringing off the lips of his true soul's partner, Ryou Bakura.

"GAAAAAAAACHHHOOOOOOO!" the spirit squeezed violently enough that even his calming thoughts were thrown out of his head. He looked over at the little plastic infant whose roof he was sharing and bowed his head more out of sarcasm than true belief.

"Sorry about that little JC. I don't mean to crash your birthday party like this but I kinda got kicked out of the place I was staying…kind of got kicked out of the family I was staying with," Kamenwati's humor drifted off into deep regret.

Sitting here in this frigid cold was bad enough but being cut off from Ryou's mind made the chill even harder to take. It felt like Kamenwati had managed to find that one frozen spot in hell that everyone talked about.

"Course, that would mean you're down in Hell with me," Kamenwati continued his odd conversation with the little plastic Emmanuel. "I mean from all I've indirectly picked up I've heard that you did up making a trip down there to save all our little lost lambs but…well I don't think you'd really be interested in saving someone like me, would you?"

Though Kuriboh had been the monster doing a lot of the work this evening, during this particular reconciliation there was something greater at work. Something greater that might have been signaled down by Doma but definitely went to a much higher power than Doma would ever dare to directly solicit.

The small Christmas-star that was half-buried under the snow on the managers' roof-top began to glow with more brilliance than a decade-old bulb could ever produce. And it was by this light that Leonardo Bakura was lead to Kamenwati.

"Oh hell, now what? Are you going run me off from this place too? Am I somehow corrupting even this stupidly historically inaccurate Christmas scene?" Kamenwati sneered at the linguist and huddled even more tightly into the far corner of the manger.

Leonardo just stared at him with what could have been mistaken for panic.

"Y…you're…you're hands…" Leonardo said painfully.

Kamenwati cocked a curious eyebrow but followed Leonardo's direction and looked down at his fingers. It was highly discomforting to see that the usually serenely white digits were now gray with what was probably the onset of frostbite.

Before Kamenwati could even think about exactly who he was sitting in front of, the spirit summoned his magic and let the dark flames eat away the damage. After he got some decent feeling back into his hands, Kamenwati decided to take the extra-precaution of letting the flames run through the rest of his body as well. Though he did have the grace to step outside of the manger before doing so.

Leonardo reacted to Kamenwati's magic use with his usual half-grimace and the professor made a concentrated effort to not look in the spirit's direction until Kamenwati had put out all the flames.

"It's alright now," Kamenwati snorted. "The monster has been shoved back into the closet."

Surprisingly, instead of saying something disparaging like Kamenwati himself was the monster, Leonardo actually seemed to flinch and blush with humility.

"Forgive me, it's not…it's not you. I'm just …still not used to all this …particularly not here."

Kamenwati looked over his shoulder towards the manger in shock then looked back at Leonardo in disbelief.

"There is a freakin' unnatural heavenly body as well as a distinctly inhuman being with wings depicted in that scene," Kamenwati thumbed towards the star and angel still serenely sitting on the manger's roof. "I don't think my little self-heating trick is all that impressive compared to that."

"Oh! …I…I had never thought of that before," Leonardo blinked rapidly and stared at the nativity scene with something like scholastic interest.

"Well while it's WONDERFUL that I could turn your interests towards Biblical magic," Kamenwati rolled his eyes, "I think I should probably be more interested in what are you doing here? I already left the house. Are you really that pissed at me that you won't leave off until I pack my ass back to Egypt cuz let me tell you that would be a terribly timed decision. If you'd caused me to snap earlier I could've taken Masaki's stupid Christmas gift with me and snuck my way into the Ishtar's place for a few days."

"I am not here to run you out of the country," Leonardo snorted. "Nor was I looked for a new subject to research. I am here to collect you and bring you back to Ryou."

Kamenwati wasn't sure why he didn't snap right back into insanity. The suggestion was certainly sarcastic enough to make Kamenwati's teeth clench. And yet under the still oddly radiant light of the stupid plastic star, Kamenwati felt in control of his darkness. Hell, in this light it almost felt like Kamenwati didn't have any dark ancestral burdens at all.

"You want me to go back to Ryou? Seriously? That's the best you can come up with? If you're going to lie at least make it something convincing," Kamenwati spat.

"I am not lying," Leonardo frowned. "I have had a …a change of heart as to your relationship with my son and—"

"And what? Suddenly the idea of a recently reincarnated near-god of darkness sneaking into your only son's pants on a daily basis doesn't terrify you anymore? You're suddenly ready to believe the best of me and bury the hatchet?" Kamenwati snorted.

"Bakura please, I know that I was cruel to you—"

"You weren't cruel, you were honest. I could respect that even as I hated you but now that…wait a minute, did you just call me Bakura?" the dark spirit's eyes widened in shock.

"That is your name, is it not? At least one of your names?" Leo smirked triumphantly.

"Well I…I mean, I've been called that by the people here in Domino but…shit, it's YOUR name!" Bakura stammered and blushed, feeling well and truly confused.

"It can be your name too," Leo said with a more solemn expression as he pulled Ryou's ring out of his winter-coat's pocket and held it out for Bakura to see.

"…What are you proposing to me?" Bakura teased to cover the fact that he was barely breathing.

"PROPOSE TO—" Leo snarled and nearly lost his cool. The linguist closed his eyes and took a deep breath that Bakura's still nerve-tightened lungs envied. "I do not have that much love for you, Kamenwati Kul-Elna Bakura. It's my son that you have to thank for this ring."

Bakura didn't even notice that he was walking until he was barely two feet away from his hikari's father and Bakura's hands were reaching towards the velvet jewelry box.

"Ah! Crap!" Bakura blushed and shoved his hands hastily back into his pockets. He felt strangely ashamed for desiring to take the ring from an indirect messenger. "I uh…not to …to say I don't want it but…b-but why didn't you leave that with Ryou for him to give me? I mean…unless he's…"

"Ryou is very much alright. He's physically and emotionally exhausting from being thrown in the middle of our fight but otherwise he's fine," Leonardo smiled with the fatherly affection that he'd probably always felt but that had been hidden behind anger for all of the time he'd been here in Domino.

"He's not hurt?" Bakura chocked.

"My son is much stronger than you give him credit for," Leonardo said as he closed the ring-case's lid with a snap. "If I am to accept you as my son-in-law I expect you to give him more respect than that."

"Your son-in-law…are you…is this? Okay, just to clarify I didn't accidently banish myself to the shadow-realm when I was warming up back there, did I?" Bakura shook his head wildly. "I mean I AM talking to Leonardo Lyo Bakura, right? Half-British, half-Japanese professor of Linguistics over at the Whitehill University and father of Ryou Bakura, right?"

"I am Leonardo Bakura. This is real. And I am beginning to feel very worried as to your mental-health that you should be having this much trouble dealing with this all," Leo rolled his eyes with as much annoyance as Bakura had shown the older man earlier.

"I…I don't know what to say," Bakura blinked stonily.

"And I don't particularly want to hear what you would say. I simply want you to take this," Leonardo slapped the box back into Bakura's hand. "And go back to the hospital where Ryou is probably being discharged and I want you to agree to make an honest man out of my son."

"That's it?" Bakura stared at Leonardo in disbelief.

"It will have to be enough for now…though I dare say between now and whenever you actual plan on exchanging vows with my son, you and I will have to have a long talk and settle some of our differences for good," Leo nodded sternly.

"So…I'm officially Bakura to you now?" the ex-thief questioned.

"Oh good God man, I wasn't that bad! So stop staring at me and be off!" Leonardo unbelievingly reached down and picked up a handful of snow to toss in Bakura's face. "Be off! Scram! And make things right with Ryou!"

"Yah okay only…well…I mean this is just supposing my apology works out but…well maybe you've forgotten what it's like when young lover make up but—"

"I shall be spending the night with Solomon and Arthur helping them with the last minute things they forgot to attend to before they agree to go watch that community ballet recital your friend is in," Leo turned red but refused to react. "So whatever you do…well I don't want to imagine what it is you do so I'll leave it there."

"Good…oh and Leonardo?" Bakura said just before he stepped into a hastily summoned shadow-portal.

"What is it?" Leo huffed.

"You really shouldn't take the lord's name in vain like that, I mean he's right there," Bakura teased before allowing his magic to pull him back to the one he loved most.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

While Leonardo was trying desperately not to curse even more out in Domino Park_, _over at KaibaCorp Mokuba was busy entertaining his dueling peers and waiting for some message from his brother to tell him how things had gone with Katsuya.

Noboku Higa found him crouched underneath the refreshment table staring at his cell-phone and gave a heavy sigh.

"Mokuba-sama…what are you doing?" the younger Higa secretary asked.

"Wha? Oh, hi Noboku, I was just—" Mokuba waved distractedly at the woman before suddenly she reached down and tore the phone right out of his hands.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU—" Mokuba was silenced when his usually timid assistant pulled him into a tight embrace that made Mokuba's little pre-teen brain turn to mush.

"Is it not enough for you to be your brother's right-hand man? Must you live only through him?" she asked in a soft whisper.

"I-I don't know what you…Ah! No wait! Don't hug me like this here! Rebecca will see and then she'll blackmail me with it forever and-" Mokuba squirmed to get out of her grasp. Noboku held on too tightly though and after a minute of graceless floundering the vice-president decided it would be more gracious to wait until Noboku was ready to let him go.

"You are not an adult yet, Mokuba-sama. You are not even close," Noboku finally pushed Mokuba far enough away that she could look at his face without her own cleavage getting in the way.

"I-I know I'm not…I-I wasn't acting…um…that is…" Mokuba's blush intensified as he realized Noboku was looking at him in the same way Miss Masaki looked at her daughter, or how Solomon looked at Yugi.

"You are going to have fun with your friends tonight, Mokuba," Noboku said resolutely. "So help me you will or I will have Akuro come over her and FORCE you to have fun."

Mokuba looked over towards where the elder Higa sister was trying to keep the geeky R&D Department from coming to blows with the Finance Department. Akuro looked so fierce, even amidst KaibaCorp's finest minds, that Mokuba couldn't help but feel slightly intimidated.

"I wouldn't want that," Mokuba admitted softly.

"Neither would I, Nee-sama will probably be in a foul mood until midnight when the corporation is officially closed for the holidays," Noboku nodded in solemn agreement.

Mokuba smiled reassuringly at Noboku but when he scanned the room for his companions he saw that Rebecca and Leon were dancing with a group of KaibaCorp's employee's children and his confidence suddenly melted into his shoes.

Mokuba had only ever purchased friends before, usually to play Capsule Monsters with, and even those relationships had never lasted longer than the time it took for the quarters to be spent. Without money or competition to field the way Mokuba didn't really know how to interact with others his own age.

"Why don't you give one of those young ladies or there one of the new Smart Kuribohs©?" Noboku nudged her chin at the pile of slightly wrapped display-models that the decorators had positioned under the enormous Christmas tree.

Mokuba's nodded numbly and picked one up but a slight coo from the box reminded Mokuba of just how much he had come to hate these fuzzy robots and he dropped it back on the stack.

"No, no more buying friends," Mokuba resolutely shook his head. He turned and held gallantly held a hand out to Noboku. "I'd like you to be my ice-breaker, if…if you wouldn't mind."

"Me?" Noboku blushed. "What do you want me to do?"

"You're interested in mythology, right? Rebecca Hawkins will talk to you about whatever mythical monster you want until dawn," Mokuba laughed affectionately at the mental-image of his short blonde cohort wildly lecturing to this older woman.

"Oh..oh okay," Noboku shrugged. She took Mokuba's hand but before she could turn towards the group Mokuba tightened his grip and held her still.

"Mokuba-sama?" the secretary blushed even further.

"First…first I'd like it…um that is I mean it would be nice if we …could dance? Maybe?" Mokuba coughed.

Noboku flushed as she looked into Mokuba's young face and for a moment saw that shadow of the older gentleman that he was becoming. It was a startling difference from the usual scheming, laughing, sometimes even whining boy that she saw behind a desk every day.

"I…I would enjoy a dance very much, Mokuba," Noboku dropped the honorific with fondness.

And so the odd pair began waltzing their way over to Rebecca and the others, away from where Mokuba's cell-phone and the Smart Kuribohs© lie discarded under the tree. Neither one of them noticed that one of the Kuribohs was giggling to itself.

**(A/N: **Why did I give Mokuba an older romantic interest just now? …To be honest, I don't know. I just figured the kid deserved something a little better than following around a pair of love-struck pre-teens. Besides, this way Mokuba can't be interrupted by any more calls from the hospital, the cabin decorator's complaining that Honda never showed up or any of those other little plot bits**)**

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

Ryou was on the curb outside the hospital when Bakura arrived. His little light didn't look particularly healed, but then again Bakura didn't imagine that Ryou could be feeling very well if he was still under the impression that Leo and Kamenwati were at each other's throats somewhere in the snow.

Rather than appear all at once and risk Ryou getting so huffy that he threw a disorienting shot of light-ka through him, Bakura decided to present himself in stages starting with opening the mind-link and sending his feelings of love and apology towards the younger.

The effect was a little bit more than Bakura had intended, however, because Ryou's whole body seized as if it had been filled with electricity and the hikari would have collapsed onto the ice if Bakura hadn't run out to catch him.

"Jeez Ry, I'm gone for a day and you're already so sensitive?" Bakura snickered lovingly into his light's ear.

It wasn't really that surprising that the joke would hit Ryou's frayed nerves the wrong way, but Bakura still hadn't expected the punch his light threw to hurt as badly as it did.

"Shit!" Bakura wailed and reached his left hand up to rub his jaw.

"B-Bakura…you…where did you," Ryou immediately noticed the ring that Bakura had slipped on during his little shadow-jump.

"Believe it or not, your dad gave it to me. He had this crazy idea that you might've wanted to propose to me," Bakura smiled gently as he watched Ryou flip his hand one direction then the other in a desperate examination of the ring.

"M-my father…delivered this?" Ryou gasped and began to tear up. "B-But he…I-I thought he—"

"I thought so too, but apparently something got to him…hmm…now that I think about it rationally I have sensed a lot of peculiar shadow activity going on tonight and I-MMMPH!" Bakura's smart-aleck responses came to an immediate end as Ryou suddenly pulled him into what had to be the best kiss they'd ever shared. Which was definitely saying something because Bakura had always thought highly of their kisses even when Ryou was still so green at it that he kept nearly chipping a tooth against Bakura's teeth.

"Marry me, my Kamenwati. Be my Christmas present," Ryou purred gently into Bakura's lips.

"Gladly…just so long as you agree to be my Christmas present as well," Bakura purred right back.

Ryou grinned cheekily and said, "I thought you didn't like Christmas."

"Are you kidding me? I've got my very own Christmas elf on permanent loan from the North Pole," Bakura smiled and nipped playfully at Ryou's lower-lip. "In fact…you know you're father won't be home for the rest of the night…"

"You cannot be serious!" Ryou wrenched away from Bakura with horror. "You cannot possible want to do THAT in a-a costume covered in pom-poms, t-that we rented from MOKUBA!"

"I'd steal the one pharaoh's brat was wearing but given the way those two have been cooing at each other lately I doubt it will be any better condition than your own is going to be," Bakura snickered.

"Hmm particularly not after tonight," Ryou couldn't help but think aloud.

"Wha—UGH! Ryou! No! Don't think about things like that when I'm right in your mind with you! Uhhhh gross, porcupine-sex," Bakura blanched and slapped his ring-weighted hand over his eyes.

"I believe this is what most people would refer to as turn-about being fair play. Don't think I don't know about those dirty conversations you had with Atem after we first had sex," Ryou flushed and glared.

"That was for his education, not my mental-assassination. Yuuuuck, now I don't know if I even WANT to officiate our engagement like I planned," Bakura continued to shudder.

"We…we are engaged…aren't we," Ryou said softly, almost as if he were afraid that speaking too loud would break the dream.

"Well yes, but it probably won't count until I find you a ring as well…" Bakura pouted and tugged at Ryou's suddenly very naked looking ring-finger. "As romantic as your plan was, my light, I wish I'd known sooner."

"I already have a ring," Ryou trailed his fingers down his neck to warped pendent of gold that he wore which was all that remained of the Millennium Ring.

"I mean a real ring," Bakura smiled in fondness. A sudden thought then occurred to him and he gently tugged the necklace off Ryou's neck.

"Bakura?" Ryou blinked.

"How about one more lesson in ka-control, my lovely light?" Bakura smirked charmingly. "I'll give it direction and you give it the juice."

"I'm not sure what you mean but okay," Ryou bowed his head and started to glow with power. Bakura placed Ryou's hand over his palm holding the Millennium Ring's fragment. Bakura then placed his other hand over Ryou's and pressed the boy's skin firmly against the gold.

Ryou yelped slightly as he felt the once solid metal under his palm turn as liquid as melted ice before suddenly returning to a solid, albeit much smaller form.

"Huh, that's funny. I'd meant it to be a lotus," Bakura grunted with slight annoyance as he pulled his hands back revealing the engagement ring now sitting in Ryou's palm.

It was a beautiful gold ring decorated by a small poinsettia made of several tiny rubies and three even tinier topaz gems. There were even etchings of leaves carved into the gold making the odd festive bush look even more like a flower than it usually did.

"O-oh Kura!" Ryou gasped. "You…no, I know how connected you are to this gold…this…this is all that's left of your family and-"

"And it should be used for the purpose of building my new family," Bakura said as he slid the ring onto Ryou's finger.

"This…this means so much…" Ryou smiled at the ornament.

"Enough that you'll rethink my first celebration suggestion?" Bakura wiggled his eyebrows.

"Only if you wear yours too," Ryou laughed and placed a kiss on his incorrigible fiancé's forehead.

"Done and done! Merry freaking Christmas to me!" Bakura grinned and cast his final portal spell of the night.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

**(A/N:** You now I really like the Nutcracker…which is why I am leaving Anzu's performance up to your imaginations. I'm sure she does really well there but…well she's not the romantic lead is she? She's the girl who's going to complain about being the only single lady amongst her friends and I'm gonna have to make it up to her sometime in the future…maybe…)

**Christmas Morning**

Atem was awoken by the annoying chirp of his cellphone. Being the rather technophobic man that he was, Atem had not been very keen on the idea of owning his own phone to begin with. Having the damn the ring wake him out of a dead sleep did not improve Atem's feelings towards the wretched device.

What did improve Atem's overall mood, however, was when the ex-pharaoh's sleep addled mind woke up enough to remind Atem of the glorious events of the previous evening. The same wonderful events that were the reason why Atem was sans pajamas in Yugi's bed feeling more fantastic than if he'd won a thousand tournaments.

"Yes…yes…YES!" Atem whooped and punched the air victoriously in an utterly childish move.

Any of the ex-pharaoh's rivals would've burst out laughing at the sight of Atem grinning like an idiot and all but performing a victory-dance as he got dressed but Atem wouldn't have cared.

Though the fates had been against him and the demands of his friends had kept getting in the way, Atem "Yami" Motu had finally, FINALLY had sex with his hikari.

Yugi had been a little hesitant at first, obviously still preoccupied with Ryou's troubles, but Atem had only needed to give Yugi the slightest mental nudge and the hikari's resistance had tumbled down completely.

Atem was repeating his favorite moments over and over again in a giddy loop in his mind as he finished pulling on his jeans and even as he fished the damned cell-phone out of the back-pocket.

There was a short text-message from Yugi's grandpa on the screen enigmatically said that the old man hoped the boys were enjoying a very Merry Christmas and that he'd see them there. Atem had no idea what Solomon meant by 'there' but it wasn't that impossible to believe that the old man might have not come back from the hotel last night and was simply saying he'd come and join the celebration later.

Atem shrugged and slipped the phone back into his pocket to examine more closely later. Right now all Atem wanted was to find where Yugi had scampered off to so that he could kiss the boy good morning.

Another victorious smile crept goofily over the former pharaoh's lips as he recalled the variety of kisses he'd exchanged with Yugi last night.

"It's raining sunshine, it's raining sunshine," Atem hummed to himself, unaware that the somewhat fitting description to Yugi's passion triggered burst of light ka last night was from one of those holiday stop-motion films he detested.

The pharaoh bounded down the stairs and peeked into the kitchen to see if Yugi had maybe woken up early to eat breakfast. The boy certainly had a lot of calories to make up for after last night's exercise.

"Okay that's enough," Atem scoffed at his own childishness. He didn't get very far into attempting to clear his mind before the phone went off again from inside Atem's front pocket, making the ex-pharaoh feel decidedly goosed.

"Shit! Stupid vibrate," Atem pulled the phone out in time to see another text-message appear in the memory. This one was from Anzu. She'd apparently had the time of her life at last night performance and that she would tell him all about it when he got there later.

As this was the second time one of his closest friends (**A/N:** no longer insecure about his relationship, Yami has let Anzu back on the list) had mentioned the mysterious locale of 'there', Atem began to feel the slightest bit suspicious. He knew Yugi wasn't planning a party here. The Kame Game Shop was too small for more than four or five people to get together, which usually suited the group fine but hardly made for a party.

"Okay…mystery for later," Atem shoved his phone deeply back into his pocket. Unfortunately that move was a bit too hasty because as soon as it was back in nerve-rattling proximity to his skin the damn thing went off again.

"Oh for the love of Hathor!" Atem snarled and pulled the wretched device back out. This time the message was from Bakura. It was even more enigmatic than the rest saying that even if Atem was no longer part of the Cherry gang –how Bakura knew this, Atem didn't even want to imagine—that Bakura was STILL further along in his relationship with Ryou and that he'd explain all about it when they met up 'there'.

"Stupid tomb-robber! Where is there, damn it!" Atem was about to stuff the phone back into his pocket before he thought better of it and put the thing down on the kitchen counter. It was a good decision to make to because as soon as it hit the counter the phone went off again.

In fact, in the next seven minutes, Atem seemed to get a text-message from everyone he knew all saying that they couldn't wait to see Atem 'there'. It was almost sinister how none of them would mention where 'there' was and how they all seemed to assume that Atem just knew.

"What the hell is going on?" Atem glowered as the strange, purposefully secret-keeping, device.

"Atem? What are you doing to your phone?" Yugi's voice suddenly rang out from behind him and caused Atem to jolt even worse than when the phone had gone off next to his crotch.

"Ah! Nothing! That is…good morning aibou," Atem smiled charmingly as he held the phone out of sight behind his back.

A quick glimpse at his aibou solved the lesser mystery of where the boy had been hiding. According to the card Yugi held up in explanation of his wardrobe Yugi had opened his gift from Secret Santa while waiting for Atem to get out of bed. The fluffy purple bath-robe and slippers that were Yugi's present from his Secret Santa appeared to be slightly too big but that only served to make Yugi look more cuddly and touchable.

Atem was still going to have a word with this mysterious gift-giver. After all, a bath-robe hardly seemed like an appropriate Christmas present. It seemed particularly bad because Atem had spent a lot of thought and effort getting his gift for Jounouchi. …Though if it had been the perpetually cash-strapped blonde who'd given this gift then Atem didn't mind overly much.

"Opening gifts without me, love?" Atem pouted, pretending to be hurt.

"Well, I tried to wake you up but you were practically in hibernation," Yugi rolled his eyes. "It's hardly my fault that you'd rather sleep then celebrate."

"Considering it was you who wore me out," Atem felt his sentence open-ended. As he'd hoped Yugi turned an adorable pink and hid his face by rubbing a towel over his still dripping hair.

Atem waited until Yugi had to come back out for air then leaned in and gently kissed the boy's lips.

"I am immensely happy. Are you?" the former pharaoh asked.

"I'm …sore," Yugi blushed. "Like really, really sore. And I am kind of ticked off that Ryou didn't give me a better warning about how sore I was going to get. I mean what the point of having a friend who has already lost their virginity if you can't mine them for details like that?"

"I don't believe Ryou is the type who feels comfortable giving details…now Bakura on the other hand," Atem rolled his eyes.

"I can imagine," Yugi giggled then frowned. "Do you think they made up?"

"According to this damn jittery thing then yes," Atem said holding up his phone between his forefinger and thumb like a dead rodent. "And apparently Bakura wants to tell me all about THAT little moment as well at some place he didn't clarify. In fact, all our friends seem to have some secret meeting arranged …do you know anything about that?"

"I do indeed know all about that," Yugi flashed a triumphant smile all his own. "But because you woke up so late, you'll just have to wait and see. For now I think you should shower while I fix up a quick breakfast and call the gang to let them now you got their messages."

"Hmmph very well…though…I don't suppose you'd like to try out your bathrobe a little more and join me in the shower," Atem asked with honest eagerness.

"YAMI! Sore! All over! First time! Ever!Still! Sore!" Yugi choked out brokenly.

"There are other things we can do that won't make you THAT sore," Atem pouted.

"N-no," Yugi shivered as Atem projected images of just want he planned into his younger half's head. "No. We're running late and…and…damn it if you'd only woken up when I'd tried to wake you then maybe a-and…j-just go shower!"

"I love you too, aibou," Atem chuckled and swaggered out of the room.

**Ho-Ho-Ho-Into the Finale We Go!**

Despite Atem taking twice as long as normal in the shower so that he could tease his aibou with more mental projections of the ex-pharaoh's sud-covered body, and Yugi's own highly sensitive reaction to said projections that made the boy's attempts at cooking pancakes into a quest for the impossible, within one short hour both star-heads were properly groomed and dressed in –as Yugi had insisted—their best seasonal clothes.

"More sweaters," Atem grumbled down at his red top with venom. Yugi giggled and kissed the frown off the dark one's lips.

"Shut up, you look great. Now I want you to carry these boxes and follow me. We have a small walk ahead of us but it shouldn't be far enough that we'll need a cab," the hikari said dropping a stack of brightly wrapped packages into Atem's arms.

"Wasn't the whole point of the Secret Santa thing in only buying one present?" Atem huffed suspiciously at the gifts.

"I only said that to make Jou and Honda feel better. But these aren't for our immediate group. These are for Rebecca, her grandpa, Leon, Mokuba and my Secret Santa," Yugi said as he walked awkwardly over to the coat-rack. "And before you can complain about why you have to carry them I want you to remember how hard it's going to be for me to walk over there to begin with."

"I'm sure I could come up with a magical pain-reliever if you gave me a minute to think about it," Atem pouted.

"Naaah, it'll do me good to perform the hobble-walk of shame," Yugi blushed and giggled. "It'll help keep me grounded and not so filled with awkward butterflies that I'll want to scream what happened to everyone over there."

"Gaaaah Yugi that's the second time you've called our destination 'there'. This is getting highly annoying," Atem grumbled.

"Just hold on a moment," Yugi kissed Atem's cheek sweetly. "You'll see in a moment."

Atem cursed slightly under his breath at infuriating secrets and cute hikaris who made it impossible to be mad about secrets as he followed Yugi out into the street.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

Thanks to yesterday's blizzard the entire city of Domino was blanketed in a nice serene layer of snow. The sidewalks, the lamp-posts, the trees and everything else Atem could see was frosted white and glittering like melted diamonds.

"When it snows, ain't it thrilling? Though your nose is a-chilling," Yugi sang joyfully as he walked along. The boy interrupted his own song to spin around and smile invitingly. "Isn't it all so wonderfully yuletide?"

"I suppose so," Atem shrugged slightly. "I mean it will probably look the same in February."

"Ooooh you stubborn ass," Yugi rolled his eyes and turned back around. "You still aren't seeing it, are you?"

"Seeing what?" Atem huffed. "Were on an empty, frost-bitten street and-"

"That's just it! It's an empty street! It's a beautiful morning and yet there is no one around," Yugi threw up his arms in exasperation. "Everyone is inside with their loved-ones or friends enjoying a day of compassion and joy!"

"Is that so?" Atem chuckled.

"Yes that is so…am I'm going to prove it too you," Yugi winked and suddenly turned off the sidewalk to walk up the stairs of the Domino City Convention Hall.

"Yugi, aibou, where are you going?" Atem chuckled.

"There," Yugi said mysteriously.

Feeling strangely giddy with excitement, instead of just annoyed as before, Atem quickly followed his aibou up the steps into the building.

The halls were empty but there was a faint atmosphere of merriment that only ever arose when people were near.

"What's going on Yugi?" Atem blinked curiously.

"A very Merry Christma," Yugi chuckled as he threw open the doors to the convention center and revealed an absolute wonderland.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

It was a joyful, noisy scene of chaos inside the convention hall, and Atem didn't have much than a few seconds to admire the picture before he was forcibly pulled into it by the friends that had gathered there.

"FINALLY! You are so late, pharaoh and OOH! That's a present for me right? Oh and look Leon, this one is for you!" Rebecca ran up first suddenly releaving Atem of his gifts and passing them around to the addressees. Leon arrived a close second and was barely any better than Rebecca for giving the pharaoh a brief thank-you before running off to join Rebecca under the giant Christmas tree.

Already underneath said Christmas tree Honda's little cousin Joji was looking at his newly received Smart Kuriboh© in slight terror while his mother was weeping all over a very embarrassed Mokuba and secretary in gratitude for the gift.

Not too far away Kaiba Seto and Jounouchi Katsuya were having what seemed to be a VERY playful conversation over how Jounouchi looked in his new caramel-colored leather duster. Their flirtations were practically celibate, however, compared to the Otogi and Mai who were testing out the mistletoe to the fullest extreme.

Before Atem could decide if the blonde duelist's shirt was naturally that low-cut or if Otogi had been helping it down, he was ambushed once more by Anzu. The extremely bubbly ballerina pulled him over towards the artful hot-cocoa tree display and mothered him into taking one of the warm mugs into his hands even as she excitedly rattled on about her Christmas Eve performance.

"Oh and the costumes were so gorgeous I wish I could brought mine here to show you!" Anzu squealed with glee. "It was all like a dream and I can't even begin to tell you how nervous I was! If it weren't for Mamoru-chan—"

"Mamoru-_chan_?" Atem grinned teasingly.

"Oh, I-I mean if i-it weren't for my dance partner Inui Mamoru I wouldn't n-never …I would've…oh stop giving me that look!" Anzu blushed and punched Atem's shoulder with not a little force.

"Eeeeeasy there slugger," Bakura came out of nowhere to grab Atem before he fell over. "It would sort of ruin the mood if you accidentally scalded Atem to death."

"It wouldn't have scalded him to death," Anzu blushed defensively.

Bakura just shrugged and mentioned how Serenity wanted Anzu to cover over to the buffet-table so the redhead could show off her Christmas present from Honda (compliments of Mokuba).

Once the brunette had run off, Atem found himself the subject of Bakura's holiday glee as the thief informed him of the engagement.

"You're serious!" Atem nearly spilled his cocoa anew as Bakura smiled beamed with pride.

"Serious as the shadow realm. It was to pay for this beauty," Bakura wiggled the platinum ring on his finger, "that our hikaris went through that wonderful elfish mess. Remind me to give Yugi my thanks for that by the way."

"I just can't believe that Leonardo actually allowed this," Atem continued to shake his head against the shell-shock.

"Me either," Bakura huffed and looked over his shoulder to where an utterly transformed Leonardo was eagerly engaging in story-exchange with Solomon and Arthur. "But I think I might now the reason behind the change of heart. I just can't believe you managed to get your duel-monsters to agree to pull off something his big on Christmas Eve. I know my deck is insanely sensitive about being allowed to celebrate their own version of this crazy holiday."

"Duel monsters? But I didn't summon any-" Atem didn't get to finish his thought before Ryou came to pull Bakura away for their own turn under the mistletoe while Mai came over to wish Atem a Merry Christmas.

"I was so happy that you involved me in this whole thing to begin with," the blonde said as she straightened out her top –which looked suspiciously like one of Otogi's crimson dress-shirts -, "what with not having a proper family to celebrate with myself and all. But then you and your partner had to go and make this an even more amazing trip by settling me up with Otogi. I have to say that I would have never come on to him on my own, I was always so stuck on Jounouchi even though I'd say it's pretty obvious he's more interested in blue eyes than purple."

"W-well that's good for you but I didn't-" Atem tried to explain again when Mai was suddenly swept back into Otogi's arms and led off to the dance-floor where Mr. and Mrs. Masaki were cutting a rug with Mr. and Mrs. Honda.

For the first time since the doors opened Atem found himself with a moment to himself and was finally able to realize that he'd completely lost sight of Yugi.

"Have you lost something sir?" Mokuba's young secretary appeared out of seemingly nowhere to take Atem's empty mug en-route to picking up drinks for herself and her young boss –who was at the moment getting sprayed with silly-string by Leon von Schroder-.

"Uh…you wouldn't have happened to see where my partner went off to?" Atem smiled sheepishly.

"Oooh, you mean the young man who arranged all this? He's over there by the big window next to the smaller Christmas tree," Noboku pointed in the correct direction.

"Thanks…oh and Merry Christmas," Atem smiled.

**Ho-Ho-Ho**

Yugi was looking at the obviously ironically chosen maroon star shaped ornaments on the tree when he felt a warm pair of arms wrap around his shoulders.

"I think I've been had," Atem's rich voice said into Yugi's ear causing the duelist's body to tremble like a bowl of jelly.

"Oh yah? Why do you think that is?" Yugi giggled and allowed Atem to turn him around.

"Well, according to the few little conversations I've been in, it seems that this entire party isn't quite as natural an event as we'd all like to believe," Atem said solemnly.

"What do you mean it's not natural? Everyone seems perfectly magic-free to me…though I do have my suspicions about Joji's present," Yugi pouted and threw a quick glance towards the mechanical Kuriboh chattering away at the young Honda.

"I mean it is unnatural because SOMEONE has been running around over the past few days making arrangements for everyone to be a bit more gleeful than they were before," Atem smirked.

"I have no idea what you're going on about," Yugi smiled innocently up the ceiling. "Oh, and by the way. This gift is for you."

Atem looked down at the brightly wrapped gift in Yugi's arms with some surprise. "A gift?"

"It IS the tradition," Yugi laughed.

Atem looked like he was about to say something but instead just took the gift and gently untied the green ribbon and tore open the red paper.

"It's …a box?" Atem said in confusion as he looked over the nice walnut chest in his hands.

"Boxes are traditionally meant to be opened, oh brilliant son of Ra," Yugi rolled his eyes.

Atem nodded numbly and pulled back the lid.

The small-fragment that Yugi had kept of Atem's puzzle sprang up and began to twirl in time to the music but what Atem seemed more impressed by was the collage of pictures that lined the interior.

"Pictures of all our friends," Yugi smiled. "So that every time you want to look at the puzzle…and reminisce about the past…you'll remember how you are also lucky enough to be included in our wonderful present."

"Our present…present…that's….that's very clever," Atem coughed awkwardly and rapidly blinked his eyes.

"Why mou hitori no boku…are those tears?" Yugi smiled gently and cupped his other-half's face in his hands.

"Yugi…you are amazing," Atem said breathily.

Even though Yugi had been imagining Atem's reactions to his plans for months, the words still managed to make his body to tingle with near painful delight.

"O-Oh it's not r-really all that impressive. I-I mean I had t-this old music-box just sitting around and—" Yugi blushed and tried to take a step backward so he could collect himself.

Atem didn't allow him that chance as the ex-pharaoh put the box down on the window-ledge and pulled Yugi into a tight embrace.

"Your gift is beautiful but that is only part of what makes you amazing. You spent weeks trying to convince me that Christmas could be part of my new life, my new culture and yet for weeks I resisted you…bur rather than give up…you did all this…just so that you could save me from my own stubborn rejection."

"T-that's just part of the hikari's job, right? Helping the yami get along in the world and everything?" Yugi squeaked.

"Ryou fulfilled that much by taking Bakura as his lover, and you could've easily done the same…but instead…you did this. You made my world so brilliant and filled with so many people…and I don't even know where to begin in thanking you for it all," Atem smiled with such awe that Yugi felt oddly like he'd accidentally taken the role of the Christmas angel.

"You don't have to put that much thought into thanking someone for a Christmas gift. I-if you really like it…then you just enjoy it," Yugi mumbled into Atem's sweater.

"Just enjoy it, huh? Well then I will do that, but only if you stop sulking in this corner and enjoy it with me," Atem backed away far enough that he could kiss Yugi without kinking his neck.

"I wasn't sulking! I was waiting to give you your gift!" Yugi huffed and pushed Atem playfully in the chest.

"Oh? You mean you weren't over here pouting over how it was so unfair of all our friends to credit me with the duel-monster magic that you were responsible for?" Atem teased.

"Shhh! Don't bring that up! I'm going to be spending the next year paying back Kuriboh for all he's done! And I've only JUST gotten over the ka-drain from it all! If Kuriboh decides to come out now I'll be spending the rest of Christmas nursing sore hips AND a sore head!" Yugi yelped.

"Well I certainly wouldn't want that to happen…I guess I'll just have to take over some of the magic debt with you," Atem pecked Yugi sweetly on the nose.

"You'll what? Oh! I didn't mean—"

"I want to," Atem squeezed Yugi gently. "I owe that little fuzz-ball for all he's done to help me realize how incredible Christmas is."

"You really think so!" Yugi squeaked.

"Yes I do. Merry Christmas Yugi.

"Oh! Merry Christmas Atem! Merry, Merry Christmas!'

**The End**

**Masaka: **I'll probably have to end up pulling this chapter and doing some editing but for now I want to get the entire story posted as soon as possible!

**Yami Masaka:** Yah, cuz a Christmas story just isn't as effective after Christmas

**Jason: **And on that note…MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR WONDERFUL READERS, AND MAY YOUR NEW YEARS BE JUST AS BRILLIANT!

**All:** MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!


End file.
